"I've Tasted SHOES With More Flavour." COMICS! Sometimes Despite It Being Summer I Still Sit Here And Write This Rhubarb!

As tradition dictates I read some comics and then wrote about them. However, I feel it incumbent upon me to direct your gaze further down the page where two other people have done some real writing. Don't worry there's none of that below this cut; consistency is key! By Scioli & Barber

Anyway, this...

ALL-NEW DOOP #4 Art by Frederico Santagati & David LaFuente Written by Peter Milligan Coloured by Laura Allred Lettered by VC's Clayton Cowles Cover by Michael & Laura Allred Doop created by Michael Allred & Peter Milligan Marvel Entertainment,$3.99 (2014)

In which Ingmar Bergman is invoked, the man whose name is an anagram of Racial Kite returns, points are avoided, developments delayed and a Free Digital code still isn’t any compensation for charging three dollars and ninety nine cents for a slim pamphlet. I could buy a house for that. A house that looked and acted very much like a coffee anyway.

By LaFuente, Milligan, Cowle and Allred

If I just ripped right into this as it so richly deserves (it’s a mess, and not one of blues, nor of eggs) you’d probably think I had some kind of beef with Peter Milligan. I don’t. Just because I dislike this ungodly and resolutely lifeless muddle doesn’t alter one iota the joy and wonder of all the stuff Peter Milligan, together with various talented artists, has done which I do like. It’s not to be sniffed at either that stuff: Bad Company, Skreemer, Enigma, The Eaters, Shade The Changing Man, Skin, Rogan Josh, Paradax, The Extremist, Vertigo Pop: London, Egypt, X-Force, X-Statix, Animal Man, Face, Girl, The Minx, Human Target, Hellblazer and probably some other bits and bobs here and there. The art is good but it’s by two different people and this together with the fact that last issue a character appeared in a scene they shouldn’t have been in suggests some backstage shenanigans. Pure conjecture there but what remains beyond doubt is this book is refusing to work. If you’re a big hearted soul you could read this as some impish piss take of how vacuous busywork is now the hallmark of the current X-books but for those with normal sized hearts the best way to read this remains not to read it at all. EH!

BATMAN '66 #13 Art by Dean Haspiel Written by Gabe Soria Coloured by Allen Passalaqua Lettered by Wes Abbott Cover by Michael & Laura Allred Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger DC Comics, $2.99 (2014)

All of Gotham sits agog before the cathode ray counterparts of the caped crusaders! But what’s this? Is video villainy afoot? Don’t touch that dial, chums!

By Haspiel, Soria, Passalaqua & Abbott

Hey, Dean Haspiel! I like Dean Haspiel! He draws his figures all chunky and loaded with momentum dspite an oddly flat aspect. I like it and I liked seeing it unfold in service of Gabe Soria's comedic conceit about how in the frothy primary coloured world of Batman ’66 a Batman TV show would be all grim and B&W but still as fundamentally ridiculous as the world in which it was transmitted. Possibly even more ridiculous even. The highlight is obviously the whole “bat-business” schtick which is even better if you use the voice of that “Ya filthy animal” guy from Home Alone for TV Batman. I mean, you are doing The Voices in your head anyway aren’t you? Do people do that? I know I’m reading a good comic when I stop “reading” and realise I’ve started acting it out in my head. Some people might think it’s strange but I certainly have no problem admitting I do that as long as it’s a common enough to pass for normal. If it’s grounds for having my kid taken off me then I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about; get the fuck away from me you bloody lunatic! GOOD!

BATMAN '66 MEETS THE GREEN HORNET #2 Art by Ty Templeton Written by Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman Coloured by Tony Avina Lettered by Wes Abbott Cover by Alex Ross Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger Green Hornet created by George W. Trendle & Fran Striker DC Comics,$2.99 (2014)

In which Batman ’66 meets The Green Hornet and a malevolently mirthful villain is revealed! Actually, technically, Batman ‘66 meets The Green Hornet again since the pair actually met in the first issue but then they get split up and so meet again. If that happens every issue there will certainly be no complaints lodged with the Trading and Standards people as far as this comic is concerned.

This comic showed up because I get and like Batman ’66. However I have little to no interest in Kevin Smith and in fact have actively avoided his doings ever since, over a decade ago now, I realised with the kind of diamond hard clarity I wish I could experience about things of real importance, that I didn’t actually like his movies; I just liked watching Jason Lee being sarcastic. Turns out you can watch Jason Lee be sarcastic in things which have nothing to do with Kevin Smith. The Free Market in action there. I think we can all agree that being able to watch Jason Lee be sarcastic and know Kevin Smith was not involved is worth every bit of inequality such a system fosters. Anyway, the good news is that this comic isn’t as dreadful as I feared. Now I don’t know who Ralph Garman is but he seems to be exerting a steadying influence on Kevin Smith; there’s no scene in which Robin ends up sat in his own shit or any ridiculously long-winded fulminating the humour of which is in inverse proportion to its length. So, Kevin Smith fans beware!

By Templeton, Smith, Garman, Avina & Abbott

I mean it still isn’t much cop but it isn’t much cop in such a low key way it’s hard to say precisely why it isn’t much cop. We just don’t seem to have got very far after two issues and we certainly haven’t laughed very much, or indeed at all, but then we’ve not really resented the experience either. And by “we” I mean me and the unquiet ghost of Dandy Nichols, obviously. This qualified success can’t just be down to Ralph Garman as there are also the calmative effects of Ty Templeton’s art to be reckoned with. And this is despite said art being a bit raggedy, a tad approximate even, in places and generally looking as though he’s loaded up his brush with too much ink. Little matter, because underneath all that there’s still the appealing solidity of his figures, the slight quirk of his line and a definite talent for the delineation of Caesar Romero. And yes, Children of The Now, I realise this brush very likely never existed nor was ever dunked in ink as this is one of those digital books they chuck into print to maximise revenue streams or whatever the expense account big boys chunter over by the white boards. Alex Ross’ covers are fun too. Don’t want Alex Ross sulking in the corner; nice covers, Alex Ross. So, yeah, you can probably tell from the preceding that I wasn’t really engaged by this comic but in tribute to Kevin Smith I did give it an overly verbose, self-indulgent and resolutely charmless review. OKAY!

THE GREEN HORNET (2011) Directed by Michel Gondry Screenplay by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg Starring Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz and Tom Wilkinson Green Hornet created by George W. Trendle & Fran Striker

My spawn wanted to watch this so we watched it. I swear he has powers beyond mortal ken (also I didn’t mind if I did either). Naturally I had been assured by the world outside my window that it was a big old stinker but since that’s the same world that liked the Nolan Batman films I didn’t listen. Also, The Lone Ranger had been denigrated by all and sundry and my spawn enjoyed that so, yeah, ignoring all warnings we gave The Green Hornet a shot. First of all there was too much f*cking effing and jeffing; if they’d f*cking cut that shit out a lower rating might have resulted and what should have been a f*cking kid’s film may have actually been seen by some f*cking kids. You know, kids other than those whose parents are terrible gatekeepers. Because, yes, I know it was a 12 certificate but, oh alright, I’m just a sh*tty parent and while we can talk all day about the sh*ttiness of my parenting (it’s pretty sh*tty by all accounts) I think we should all just move on to the movie. I could be biased there. So, The Green Hornet; I liked it. More importantly Wallace Kirby Chaykin Ditko Kane (or “Gil” for short) liked it. Although a lot of his fun was looking at me with a “HOO! HOO!” face every time someone swore. Which was pretty f*cking often. He had a good time though; Kato was his favourite because Kato kicked butt like butt kicking should be done. I liked the colours and general design sense of the thing and I thought Gondry was surprisingly good at action; it’s not really his usual stamping ground is it? And yet I always knew what was going on and there was quite a lot going on at times. Seth Rogen plays that “Seth Rogen” character he always plays and I find that amusing but I don’t need to see any more of it for a bit; Jay Chou was funny and charming and got all the best physical stuff; Christoph Waltz was just a joy and, yeah, um, Cameron Diaz unwisely hogs a role that should have gone to some up and coming actress and is just plain embarrassing every time she appears. It's more of a Seth Rogen film than a Green Hornet film but that's OKAY!

THE SHADOW: MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW #2 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Howard Victor Chaykin Coloured by Jesus Arbuto Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Cover by Howard Victor Chaykin & Jesus Arbuto The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite,$3.99 (2014)

In which The Shadow continues to prepare for his departure; turning off the gas, cancelling the milk, slaughtering criminals and uttering bleak aphorisms along the way.

By Chaykin, Arbuto & Bruzenak

I think the only person who enjoyed the first issue of this series more than me was Howard Victor CHaykin because here it is again. OKAY!

WONDER WOMAN #33 Art by Cliff Chiang Written by Brian Azzarello Coloured by Matthew Wilson Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher Cover by Cliff Chiang Wonder Woman created by William Moulton Marston DC Comics, $2.99 (2014)

In which all things move towards their end and Diana, the newly anointed God of War, rejects an offer of Love from that guy seemingly made of compacted corned beef while her allies savour the sour taste of loss. (OR: Wonder Woman’s search of the jungles of Paradise Island for a headache remedy proves fruitless as the paracetamol.)

If you scrape past the crap (and we’ll get to that; the crap) that’s accreted around it this run of Wonder Woman has been a pretty interesting if slow moving in the mighty modern manner. It’s been a bit of a go at a Sandman for the iPod generation or maybe a nice try at a Percy Jackson, but for children (insert smiley emoticon to indicate a joke nearly happened). Definitely more of an ensemble piece than usual and thus Wonder Woman has sometimes been lost in her own book. But on the plus side there’s been some clever reinventions of ancient idols without falling into that “Denzel - God of 8-Bit Cartridges” trap most mythic modernisers run right into (see: Neil ”Have You Now Or Have You Ever Been A Scientologist” Gaiman). Unfortunately there’s a lot of nose holding going on even as I enjoy the parts of the book which are actually enjoyable. And let’s be clear here absolutely none of the faults of this book lie in the art (except for a bizarre colouring blip this issue where it’s like someone accidentally pressed the “Edgar Delgado” button or something). The art here and throughout this run has been pretty fantastic. I mean there’s a reason I’m still sticking this book out and it sure as cupcakes ain’t the words. Chiang’s back for this final trot towards the end and most of the art for the book’s run has been from either his hands or Goran Sudzuka’s. It hasn’t been as consistent as one pair of hands but it’s been pretty consistent and while Sudzuka’s been no Chiang he’s been no slouch either. There’s been a Toth-ian emphasis on clarity throughout and the detail light results have hovered near the cartoony end of the illustrative spectrum, but that’s been all to the good; some of the stuff they’ve been called on to draw would have been pretty repellent if it hadn’t been presented with such a lightness of touch. Sadly lightness has been entirely lacking from the touch of the giant ham hands of Brian Azzarello’s writing.

By Chiang, Azzarello, Wilson & Fletcher

I try not to be a complete idiot so I realise the staginess of Azzarello’s work is intentional. That’s okay, I don’t mind that; Jack Kirby’s comics read in much the same “stagy” way (but in a way that actually "works"; for me anyway, and I'm all that matters). But Azzarello takes it to excess. There’s this thing he does where there’s very little dialogue in a panel and it creates a kind of beat of silence as you move onto the next panel; this is a very stagy effect. It’s an intentional pause for the reader to digest what they’ve just read. It’s thus implicit that what you have just read is worth the extra seconds of contemplation your sluggishly bovine mind is humbly being afforded. And that’s okay in moderation (like heroin) and while it would be wrong to say Azzarello does it all the time, it feels like he does it all the time because he does it far too much. Chuck in the mannered phrasing and nearly every utterance becomes a self-consciously theatrical stentorian oration; as though every part were played by the worst melodramatists to ever tread the boards. It’s fine in moderation (like murder) but so much of it is just fucking wearying. And most of this pause for effect business is purely an invitation to bask luxuriantly in Azzarello’s majestic word play. Unfortunately the level of Azzarello’s word play is such that this is like being invited to bask luxuriantly in cow flops. And it’s everywhere, from the terrible titles (Throne To The Wolves, Icy France; the pain, the pain) to the dialogue (or direlogue; clever, eh? No.)   There is nothing remarkable in noticing that two different words sound the same and then using one in place of the other. it’s wordplay all right but it’s just play; there’s no serious import there, no further depth, no…it’s just farting about. It’s stagy stuff but it’s stagy to excess and…I don’t know but this isn’t an isolated case is it? Isn’t this what happens with comic writers now? They mistake their quirks and ticks for the reasons for their success and their work becomes just quirks and ticks. It just seems odd that in The Age of The Writer quite a lot of the time the writing is the crap you have to scrape past. I told you we’d get to that; the crap you have to scrape past. Thanks to the art then Wonder Woman was GOOD!

THE TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE #1 Art by Tom Scioli Written by Tom Scioli & John Barber Coloured by Tom Scioli Lettered by Tom Scioli Cover by Tom Scioli Transformers & G.I. Joe created by Hasbro IDW Publishing,$3.99 (2014)

In which two popular children's toy properties I have no clear knowledge of nor any fondness for combine, with the almost certain result that I will express hostility of an almost hateful stripe. Only Tom Scioli and John Barber have the power to avert this disaster; the rest of us can only watch...and pray.

It took an invasion by robots that can turn into cars and stuff but there’s no longer any hiding the fact that Scioli’s work was a sneak attack all along. Flying under The Flag of Jack it’s now revealed for all to see that all that Kirby inflected (KOIBY! infected) alt art attitudinising was all a feint; the real crown he sought to knock askew was that of Wallace Wood. For was there ever another artist who tamed the thrill of toy soldiers and delivered it on the comics page as wonderfully as Wallace Wood? No, Cochise, there was not for it was a hypothetical. From the isolated panels of tanks and trucks and swarming hordes which punctuated such exuberant fare as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to his greatest evocation of the child at play, M.A.R.S. Patrol, Wallace Wood ruled supreme in the toy box of every child's mind.

By Sciol & Barber

True to his era Wood’s soldiers were all kin to the one piece moulded plastic cast bought by the box in militaristic multiples but Scioli inhabits times Science Fictional by comparison. His roster of rip snortin’ gun toters are the larger, more articulated figures bought by the single in bubble pack mounted on board. Scioli with Barber channel the magic of play so well you can imagine the tips of their tongues protruding from their mouths as they did so while every panel is pregnant with the possibility that a humongous dog will run through it scattering all and sundry hither nd yon before slipping behind the sofa to slobberingly chew General Flagg's head off. And it all takes place on pages artificially aged so well that the only omission from the illusion are those flecks of dark matter which grace most old comics; those which one always suspects are fly shit. These are pages rich in play also with the very format of comics from the hand lettered SFX to the occlusion of speech by the Krackle and flare of gun fire. Not only have Scioli and Barber done Wallace Wood proud they have done it by producing 21st Century comics' first great work of art. Blowing no smoke up your ass here either; it's EXCELLENT!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people who start a sentence with those words have probably not actually read any Jane Austen but will very probably have read some - COMICS!

So Ugly it is Pretty -- Hibbs on 8/6/14

Hey, me again -- yeah, bi-weekly it is, I think, for now!  Of course, my jibber jabber seems even more jibber jabbery when surrounded by Abhay.... After the cut.....

AND THEN EMILY WAS GONE #1 (OF 5): I thought this had some pretty fabulous art – Iain Laurie is in that “so ugly it is pretty” school like maybe a Mike McMahon or a Ulises Farinas or something – though I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The story was alright: I felt like I could predict each beat before it came, but that’s not necessarily bad with a horror comic, where atmosphere often counts more than plot.. What kills me, of course, is that, being from a smaller publisher (comixtribe), Diamond had literally no copies for distribution available on Tuesday when I pulled it out of the box, went “Oooh, pretty”, and tried to reorder some more. Backorder-only, which guarantees a minimum of three weeks to get a reorder (and is often 6+, because comixtribe is a UK publisher, and Diamond is wretched with UK publishers), which makes it extremely risky to order up on #2, since I can’t say when/if I will get any more #1s, which just creates this whole vicious circle, and then it’s a mini-series, so by the time we figure out the “right” order, it will be over. Ah, comics! I’m going to go with a strong GOOD.

GOD IS DEAD BOOK OF ACTS ALPHA: Three stories in an anthology. The first story, by Mike Costa, was about the same as the main series – ie, I was flipping pages to get to the end as fast as I could because I wanted to be done already; the second story was Alan Moore, and it was wonderfully meta – starring Moore himself and his “snake god”, and if this was ten years ago I’d be betting that this would make the Eisner nominees for “best short story”. I also liked that the inside covers table of contents claimed that Si Spurrier’s story was in the number two spot so I’m reading this, astonished that Spurrier would do such a ruthless Moore piss take, and then I realized it was Moore, and that made it even better. Spurrier’s story, at the back, has a very cute premise about Cherubs and their antecedents, but it practice it probably went on about three times longer that was needed. So, that’s an AWFUL, an EXCELLENT, and an OK in a single issue, which is exactly a perfect case study of why many people generally don’t like anthologies. I liked that Moore story alone just well enough to give the overall comic a GOOD, but I would understand if you ranked it lower.

MILES MORALES ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #4: Here is what I don’t get, what I truly fundamentally, in-my-core don’t get: why would you relaunch your mult-culti Spider-Man comic, put “Miles Morales”’ name in the title, present this excellent marketing moment and time for the book to explode (seriously, on paper this should be at least as big of a hit as Ms. Marvel), and then have your entire first arc be ENTIRELY about the dead white guy? Miles does nothing but react react react to Peter and Peter’s legacy and Peter’s damn baggage. This was probably 2014’s largest mainstream misfire in its wrong-headedness. Staggeringly EH.

MIRACLEMAN #9: I am just the slightest bit surprised to see the Disney corporation publish full-on vaginal birth. I was thinking they were going to cave at the last minute. Good for them. I love Miracleman generally, but as I feared, the wider audience reaction is largely “been there, done that” -- #7 was down below 20k nationally which makes me think that it could be well into cancellation territory before it gets back to brand new stories by Neil Gaiman. Meh, they’ll relaunch that with a #1 anyway. Anyway, I find this specific issue a bit over-written and half-baked, but it sets up a whole lot of wonderful stuff that’s going to pay off wonders, so as long as it is in a rated review column, I’ll say a low GOOD

NEW AVENGERS #22: Mostly because I didn’t write last week, and #21 was the single book then that I really wanted to say something about, I really admire the strong morality as the center of the decision that was made in #21, and I thought that who did make that decision was really the perfect one. There’s some real “No Tap-backs” stuff going on here, and it’s pretty much the sole piece of Hickman’s run here that has got me genuinely interested. The rest of the arc feels too expansive, too sprawling and unfocused, too…. White-boardy. Which is why would really want to point out the moments that work, like last issue and this one, with some of the fall-out. VERY GOOD. I do, wish, however, that Marvel would put more than 7 days between issues, sheesh.

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #32 EOSV: I might be hard pressed to come up with a worse title for a Spider-Man “event” than “Edge of the Spider-Verse”, which not only isn’t compelling (“edge” kinda means it could topple either way, right?), but it’s not descriptive either. Why not something more punchy like, dunno, “The Infinite Deaths of Spider-Man” (well, that’s awful too). Anyway, it is crazy-making to start off this crossover as #32 of a cancelled series, and that has a premise that’s pretty entirely different than the first 31 issues, and also, since they structure it as a time travel thing, essentially has to end with Ock Spidey surviving and losing him memory of the events, which also makes the starting point at least somewhat “out of continuity / doesn’t count”. But, despite that, mostly because I’ve always been a sucker for multiple-earth nuttiness, I thought this was an entertaining… well, I was going to say “romp”, but the body count was a bit high for that. A trifling GOOD.

TERMINAL HERO #1: Where’s the “Hero” part of it? EH.

What else? Oh yeah, I also liked GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, the film, pretty much. I wish they wouldn’t stray what seems like arbitrarily from the source material --the Novas, kind of pointlessly killing Ronan (he accused no one of anything!), and mostly the wussification of Gamora. THAT was “the most dangerous woman in the universe”? She’s beaten up by freakin’ Starlord at one point, eesh. I probably also would have dropped Nebula from the story, as that didn’t really add a thing, but, yeah, other than that? Decent enough film, and I thought the 3-D was very watchable this time. Either way, the 10 year old loved it, so that probably makes it, what, VERY GOOD?

That's me, what did YOU think?

-B

Abhay: WEAPONS OF MASS DIPLOMACY - No Whammies, No Whammies

This one's about WEAPONS OF MASS DIPLOMACY, a 2014 release of the hit French graphic novel by "Abel Lanzac" and Christophe Blain, English-Language Edition Published by SelfMadeHero, Translated by Edward Gauvin.  It's about a young speechwriter who has to draft France's responses to a "growing international crisis in the Middle East," based on true events, from the run-up to the Iraq War. So, hopefully, crazy people don't leave crazy person comments...?  Fingers crossed?  I tried to pare down expressing my own political beliefs some, to hopefully avoid that.  For example, I took out the part where I compared Richard Perle's soul to photographs of advance-stage STD sores.  I took out an extremely graphic and intensely erotic description of what I think sex and chocolate will be like the day Dick Cheney dies (spoiler warning: better than usual).  Uhm, you know, I tried my somewhat-est, so... fingers crossed...

After the jump, it's the after-jump, and after the after-jump, it's the hotel jump, and something something brand name of champagne!

In March 2003, during the run-up to the U.S. conquest of Iraq, the makers of French's Mustard felt it necessary to issue a press release to remind the public that "The only thing French about French's Mustard is the name. For the record, French's would like to say there is nothing more American than French's Mustard."

"The anti-France fervor that the Republican party had whipped up in 2003 was such that even a mustard company feared that our great hot-dog loving country would turn against it, kids."

-- Mustard-Obsessed Grandpa, the hilarious new character I'm workshopping.

* * *

For a time machine back to that time, from the French perspective, we now have translated for North American audiences Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, a roman a clef by Antonin Baudry (under the pen-name Abel Lanzac), a former writer for the Foreign Minister (and future Prime Minister of France) Dominique de Villepin and famed cartoonist Christophe Blain, author of Gus & His Gang and most recently, a pleasurable nonfiction profile of Michelin-starred French chef, Alain Passard, entitled In the Kitchen with Alain Passard.  A hit in France, the book has already been adapted into a Cesar-award winning film entitled The French Minister. You know: another comic book movie; I don't know if the trailer has that "Ooga Chakka" song on it, but for all our sakes, I certainly hope to God it does!  For the sake of the children.  Our children love who love to Ooga Chakka.  

Weapons of Mass Diplomacy doesn't seem so concerned with score-settling, or indulging in any sort of "I told you so" business that would certainly be well-deserved. I think I'd have to describe it as a very kind work, considering the history involved.

But the Iraq War itself doesn't really seem to be the book's primary concern-- it's more the backdrop for the book's true goal, making light of the foibles, egos, petty feuds and personality quirks of the diplomats caught up in those historical circumstances, in the hopes of celebrating, mocking and demystifying their work.  Various historic details are lightly hidden under obvious pseudonyms or kept purposefully vague, though it's hard to imagine a present-day reader not filling in many blanks themselves.

The first half of the book is more focused on comedy than history, at least, crafting a sustained comedic performance for the de Villepin-analogue "Alexander Taillard de Vorms" in particular-- a performance in the fullest sense of the word, combining both dialogue and body language to create a complete character. "de Vorms" crackles with nervous energy, lets loose monologues, has good days, bad days; showers; eats; babbles; inspires.  It's a pretty goddamn lively performance...

To pull it off, Blain utilizes a range of techniques, most notably a particular favorite pioneered perhaps most famously by Jules Feiffer in his Village Voice comics: cutting away the background and allowing the characters to exist in empty space, so as to focus the reader on the physical tics of the comedic character's performance.

That technique, in the right hands, can be particularly effective not only because it foregrounds the speaker's physical presence, but also subtly indicates how the speaker has dominated the attention of whomever they're speaking to. I like how it thrusts the reader into that other character's point-of-view, how the reader is reduced, like the other characters in the room, to being the speaker's helpless audience. Blain utilized the technique often in the Passard book, as well, but there was approaching his subject with a more respectful tone, whereas in Weapons, he is often operating in a lampoon mode that allows him a wilder degree of expression with his performance.

***

"From the time I was a kid and I would ask for explanations from my mother and she said, “because.” That world of people who could say “because” and get away with it -- starting with my mother and ending with George W. Bush -- has driven me crazy. [...]. If my work is about anything at the beginning it is this counter-attack on mindless authority."

-- Jules Feiffer

The book overall?

Results vary.

There's certainly a pleasure to the de Vorms performance "Lanzac" and Blain have crafted-- it's difficult to remember another comic that so acutely captures what it's like to have someone you're able to observe acting ridiculous nevertheless speaking down to you like you're a fucking idiot, down to the very body language involved. The character is a warts and all portrayl-- often difficult or exasperating, but it's also conveyed why he has the job that he has, how he's suited for it. One is left with the sense of having met a fully realized character, which seems a worthwhile goal (and perhaps an underrated goal). That the "character" is a real person of some modern historic significance adds a certain interest, as well, though this is probably far moreso the case for French audiences than those in the U.S.

And the gentle mockery of the de Villepin character and his team does give some weight to the ending. de Villepin's speech to the UN rejecting military intervention in Iraq comes short pages depicting ministers sneezing on his character, their bodies crammed into tiny planes. On page 198, de Villepin's speech is delivered; on page 178, he's being sneezed on. It's not full-on end of Caddyshack, but it makes it a little more sweet.

On the other hand?

Lanzac-Blain sometimes misjudge what's interesting about the story, and in the moments the book resembles a Devil Wears Prada for international diplomacy, an "education of a boy as to what working a hard job entails" story, well, that just doesn't feel as worthwhile as the parts of the book observing the ecosystem of that office. This is nowhere more true than in their insistence on focusing on the Lanzac character's relationship with his girlfriend. Being made by Frenchmen, a sizable portion of the comic concerns the most pressing questions of our time for Frenchmen: "can a French guy still get decently laid by his girlfriend while he's busy writing speeches and diplomatic visits to the UN?"

Indeed, the comic even bizarrely ends on a hopeful note-- not about the future of international diplomacy or the future of the Middle East, of course, but a hopeful note that this random French guy is going to soon be having some of that sweet, sweet French sex with his lady-love.

Spoiler warning: after the conclusion of the narrative presented in the book, international diplomacy and the Middle East are about to get more thoroughly fucked by the United States than "Lanzac" or his poor girlfriend could ever hope to be.

***

"If he weren’t as he was, France wouldn’t have said, Non, we won’t participate in the Iraq War. The process leading up to that was chaotic and very strange, but the decisions, and the results, were rational. That’s what I wanted to show in the book and in the film—how irrational processes can lead to rational results. ... In France, everybody pretends now that we were against this war, but it’s not true at all. The vast majority of the French elite, including the left-wing intellectuals, were trying to convince Villepin to follow Bush. When I heard him deliver his speech, I cried. I knew it was important. But I also knew that it wouldn’t stop the war. Those are the limits of speeches, the limits of debate, the limits of the pursuit of truth."

-- Antonin Baudry aka Abel Lanzac aka Arthur Vlaminck aka The Mighty Specialist (according to the Wu-Tang Name Generator)

The book concludes with de Villepin's February 2003 speech to the UN, that followed various lies told to the U.N. by Colin Powell. de Villepin knows that Powell's intelligence is horseshit; everyone knows. It doesn't fucking matter.  According to the Downing Street Memo, as of July 2002, Bush had already "made up his mind" to conquer Iraq even though "the case was thin". It didn't matter if the case was thin: "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."  Everything the U.S. does in this book is a farce, just bad theater.

The French get to have popular comics and movies about how they weren't stupid enough to go along with the U.S.'s decision to conquer Iraq.  I can't say I didn't feel a jealousy reading it...

It's interesting, being raised in the United States, we've gotten to cast the Bad Guys of History as someone else-- usually either the Germans or if the movie's set in the future or in outer space, upper-class British people. Both of whom have sucked in the past, to be fair, but.  Reading Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, it's another opportunity to see how after our empire has finally gotten done with the crumblin', we're totes going to be pretty awesome bad guys in all the movies, at least. We're going to make Darth Vader look like a puppy crapping solid gold statuettes of Tina Turner  over at the local rainbow factory (people like Tina Turner statuettes, right?  It's late at night and I can't remember Stuff I Like, which is probably ... probably not a good sign). "Colin Powell" is going to be the name of some moustachiod villain jumping up and down on babies in some future Balinese Spielberg's robo-movies.

(Calling it now: Bali is the throne island of the next great empire of Earth, and also movies get replaced by robo-movies which are like movies that clean your home. CALLING IT!).

***

"What was insidious about the ’00s view of the world was that it assumed certain cynical things as a given: that the fashion world is and always will be corrupt, that the molestation of young women by older and more powerful men is tradition, that people can be manipulated through fear. It assumed that what was in the interest of a few powerful men was naturally what was right for the masses. The decade kicked off with Bush’s victory over Al Gore, in which the general public will was overridden on a technicality, and went right into a misguided response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which established a general atmosphere of fear and sparked a depressing wave of American anti-Islamic sentiment the Bush presidency rode into an unnecessary war. The ’00s were a bully. The whole decade revolved around the public and private erasure of consent."

-- Molly Lambert

"The aide [to President Bush] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

-- Ron Suskind.

"Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence."

-- Mustard-Obsessed Grandpa.

It's strange to even remember, that year.

2003 wasn't a great year personally; historically, not so fun, either. After what had happened during the election, I just never felt like it was in doubt that those jag-offs were going into that country. Not really.  It was just, like, watching this car wreck.  I would read all of these foreign policy people or journalists who specialized in the region, and they'd all say the exact same thing, about how after the invasion would be a mess and a civil war and ethnic cleansing and repercussions in the region and blah blah blah.  If you ever hear bullshit about how "we didn't see it coming" what the consequences would be if we went in-- utter horseshit; people just didn't care; they didn't want to hear it; they wanted to hear we'd be "greeted as liberators" and the whole "Create a Democracy" thing would only take a couple weeks.  The information was out there-- nobody cared.  At least if you knew where to look.  You'd turn on the TV or read some American newspaper and it would just be this uncut gibberish.

And the people who spewed that gibberish are still around.  They're going to end up being the people who write the histories of it. And I was a younger person so I didn't realize that... What makes it shitty isn't that history's written by the winners.  It's that history's written by the assholes, by the yes men, by the fucking toadies.

That's the other thing that I thought about while reading Weapons of Mass Diplomacy, while watching Colin Powell spread false intelligence to the United Nations, his great legacy to world history. Just how hardening all of that was to watch, everything that lead up to the war. I was probably pretty cynical before that, but afterwards? Fucking forget it!  I mean, with me, it was always going to be one thing or another, but...

I'm more a comedy nerd than a politics / history nerd, so for me, when I think of speeches, I don't think of Powell or de Villepin, though. I think about Conan O'Brien's speech during the last Tonight Show.

"All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.""

And I was thrilled when he said it-- it was some goddamn thrilling television. And when I watch it again on Youtube, I still feel something.

But obviously the "be kind" part is a fucking challenge for me-- that part never really fucking sunk in, I guess. Never really got the hang of that motherfucker. Whoops.

And the actual "don't be cynical" part? Ooh, shit, I don't know-- that's always sounded like a tough nut, just when you start thinking about that war, those assholes, the corruption, journalist after journalist disgracing themselves; after what people did to each other during Katrina, after Catholic church scandals, after I don't know how many "car companies don't mind if they murder you" scandals now, after seeing how veterans get mistreated, after prison scandals and I don't know how many police scandals, and food-- oh god, what we're being fed and... I'd have a harder time listing American institutions that I think are in even remotely decent shape, that I think "Oh okay, I guess that's not completely fucked." Uh, those creme-filled cookies at 7-11 are pretty good...? Besides those, uh... fuck!

Weapons of Mass Diplomacy isn't a book about diplomacy saving the day-- it can't be. That's not how it went; it went shitty. But the world is always breaking shitty-- that's just how people like it to be, I guess, because it kinda keeps doing that and HA HA no one seems to mind oh fuck!

No, what's pleasant about Weapons isn't that it's about saving the day, saving the world-- it's that it's about standing for values, standing for the values of diplomacy even when diplomacy itself has not worked. There's a poetry to that, and I think it's the same reason that Conan O'Brien speech will always mean something to me even if I'm not great at actually doing anything he's recommending:  that it's fundamentally about the heroism of continuing to believe in simple, basically decent values even when you've lost.

I think that's a pretty nice kind of story to read, even if the work itself is an imperfect one. And it's just a little sad when you think about it, that Americans don't tell those stories more often.

Hopefully our future Balinese warlords know better.

***

Starting off slow; Hibbs on 7/23/14

OK, spam  on the site locked down, new store pretty close to squared away, maybe I am now in place to start reveiwin' again.  I've certainly been missing it somewhat. I can't promise this will be every week (in fact, I think I feel confident in announcing that this will NOT be each and every week... unless I do one of those Patreon thingies, in which case then it would be a paid job, and thus an obligation.  But I'm not thinking about doing that until I can prove to MYSELF that I can stay on this horse for a little while. Let's just go full capsule-style under that jump.

AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE #6: Man, talk about a crazy good issue of a crazy good comic book. I wish these came out more frequently, sure, but damn if this isn't worth waiting for! EXCELLENT.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4 SIN: The "weird" thing is that the Doc Ock stuff was really really really working, and there wasn't exactly a great creative reason to bring back Peter; and so much of the "what's next" appears to be tied up in multiple versions of Spider-Man, anyway, which less reason to bring back Peter, right? "Secret other spider-person locked in a vault for 10 years" is, I guess, a thing, but it strikes me that it is a thing that absolutely takes focus away from Peter and having's Peter's stories be about PETER (because, otherwise, why bring him back?).  I guess that's a long, tangled way of saying: EH.

BATMAN #33 (ZERO YEAR): Oh, oh, finally "Zero Year" ends.  I'm sure it will read pretty swell as a book, but as individual comics I mostly thought it was meandering and plodding.  However! I liked the end if only because it it was a generally cerebral conclusion, with a battle of wits at the core. I've got a strong GOOD in my heart for this.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #33 (ROBIN RISES): I have to say that I prefer a Batman who tries to, y'know, sneak around the JLA, to one who just quits when he doesn't get his way.  And damn if I don't think this book looks crazy fabulous, too -- but I'm having a great deal of cognitive dissonance with the DC universe insisting to me that Darkseid is actually a scary threat when I and you both know that he was always just All Talk in the previous continuity, while at the same time insisting that everything that had to do with Ras' al Ghul DID happen just like they've shown it before. So this storyline has me torn between "awesome!" and "Yeah, but no!".  A slightly less enthusiastic GOOD then?

BATMAN ETERNAL #16: With some more artistic consistency, this could be the greatest "big" Batman story ever (It's certainly more coherant than, say, "Knightfall" or "Cataclysm"), but, man, do I get whiplash of the art when reading this. I'm really liking the little game they're playing with the spectre here, and I like the "new" additions to the cast, and, yeah, I just generally think this is a golden age to be a Batman fan, I guess, so, here's a solid GOOD, too.

NEW 52 FUTURES END #12: I've lost the thread of this. I felt like I skipped an issue or something? But I didn't? Mostly I just don't care? Sales are horrific on it at both stores, too, so I guess I am not alone. AWFUL.

STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES GI ZOMBIE #1: And now for thirteen words I never thought I would type: I was genuinely impressed with STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES FEATURING GI ZOMBIE #1. Absolutely, positively not what I was expecting (felt very much like a gritty HBO pilot, not even slightly "Star Spangled"; had extremely realistic art, and low SFX, which is the opposite of what the covers promised). Color me shocked, this was VERY GOOD.  It will, however, be cancelled before a year is out, I'm sure. The cover and title is entirely wrong for the book.

SUPREME BLUE ROSE #1: If you're going to follow up on the Alan Moore notions of "The Supremacy", and so on, then this was nearly a perfect 90 degree turn away from the last version, I think.  I am intrigued by where this might go, but at the same time I am worried that Warren Ellis is only on for his usual six issues, in which case, why bother talking it up? It was clearly GOOD, though.

Hey, how about a graphic novel review?

SECONDS GN:  You know, I kind of loved Bryan Lee O'Malley's Chibi-style art here, and the narrative flow, but I absolutely hated the end of the story -- the protagonist learns not a thing, and rather things being driven by "Well, maybe I shouldn't change time/space because it hurts other people", the narrative is all driven by the protagonist's feelings and imaginary magical beings.  "A Wizard Did It" is, at the end of the day, crappy storytelling, and while one could totally forgive the shallow SCOTT PILGRIM for that (because I read that shallowness as an essential part of the story), one expects a little more from the "sophomore" work, doesn't one? I really liked the style and most of the execution of the work, but I thought as a piece of art it kind of failed the test of Humanity. Strongly OK is about as good as I can muster.

Right, so that's me this week.  What did YOU think?

-B

“...So The VILE APPETITES of Mankind Could No Longer Corrupt The Harmony of My PERFECT BODY!" COMICS! Sometimes These Tales of Hoffman Deliver On The Fantastique But Honesty Compels Me To Admit They Are Sorely Lacking In The Opera Department!

Hey, I wrote about a comic and now it's like it never existed. Maybe I just dreamt it all. That'd be spookily appropriate. Unlikely though.

Anyway, this... OCTAVIA TRILOGY By Mike Hoffman Octavia created by Mike Hoffman I bought this off Comixology around Christmas time but I went looking to confirm the price etc. and now it's like it never existed. So I don't know what all that's about. It's a real thing, I swear!

Octavia Trilogy is  a strange little truffle of a book I disinterred during a dozy browse through the virtual shelves of Comixology in an attempt to burn up some Christmas vouchers. You may already be familiar with Mike Hoffman’s creation; I was not and I freely admit I judged this book by its cover. This is something you should never do, so I’m forever hearing, and yet that’s what covers are for. So, I don’t know, someone needs to make their mind up about this whole covers, books and judging business. Consumer confusion aside I decided to buy Octavia Trilogy  because the cover called to mind old Vampirella comics and it called them to mind so vividly I  thought I’d found some kind of lost 1970s knock-off. Usually if I want to enjoy looking at some odd 1970s relic which has suffered the full brunt of posterity’s disdain then I just look in a mirror for free but as these were comics I had to splash some cash. Octavia Trilogy was definitely comics but it turned out to be somewhat less cobwebby than I thought. The first ,er, piece (story might be pushing it; see later) is from  2002 (maybe?) and then there are additional chapters that appeared at sporadic intervals thereafter. And now here they all are between two covers…(hmmmm it strikes me now that we’ll be needing a new phrase in The Future won’t we? Now every exciting byte of Octavia's adventures are in one data file! Tell you what, we’ll work on that and get back to you. ) So, yes, comics, not as old as I thought and…in my defence it’s little wonder that I pegged the book as originating some decades earlier as Octavia Trilogy is an act of homage at times so good it teeters on forgery. In it Hoffman is homaging both bad movies and good comics; 1960s Italian gothic horror and 1950s EC Comics. That makes things a bit twisty turny on the rating side as by rights they should be terrible but really well done comics.  Or really terrible well done comics. See,  good and bad have no real meaning when dealing with women in swimsuits who live in candle-lit castles ; it’s more about whether you enjoyed it or not.

And I did enjoy it and, yes, it is about a woman in a swimsuit who lives in a candle-lit castle. Because, as I said, part of what Octavia Trilogy is homaging is Italian horror cinema of the early 1960s. Even a thickwit like me couldn’t miss it as the book opens with a sequence so in debt to Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) it’s in danger of being dragged into an alley and having its knees shattered. However, Hoffman has swapped out the svelte brunette of the movie for his own visual fetish; the blonder and somewhat earthier looking Octavia. As a result it’s a lot less Black Sunday by way of Barbara Steele and a lot more Black Sunday by way of Barbara Windsor. Hopefully we’re clear that it isn’t this Black Sunday (it’s never on telly is it,  that Bruce Dern one? How odd. Well, I like it.)  Before the cineastes out there get all worked up I should stress that obviously Black Sunday isn’t a terrible movie but that classy homage comprises only the first few pages and after that the book flops bonelessley straight into bad horror like it has been struck from behind by an unseen hand.

I don’t know if Hoffman has purposefully strained to recreate the adolescent experience of watching a badly dubbed and choppily cut horror movie on your B&W portable with the sound down low (so Mom and Dad don’t know you’re still up)  or not, but I do know he has achieved that effect beautifully. (Also, your Mom and Dad knew; they always know). Things happen in Octavia Trilogy and sometimes they happen for a reason but that reason might be different to the reason that they happened a few pages ago; it’s like the book is resetting itself as it goes along to accommodate the, um, unique narrative demands Hoffman’s imagination makes upon it. Why it's almost as though someone were making it up as he went along…! To start off with Octavia’s a witch but then she’s a scientist; there’s this guy she doesn’t know but then she does know him and they have been lovers for years; there’s the tragically misunderstood and disfigured scientist who is now actually evil and has developed a Mortococcus, I guess, because he likes Jack Kirby’s Kamandi even more than I do; in the second chapter the entire first chapter is now a movie everyone was starring in but now actually it’s all  a dream from which Octavia can only awaken because not answering a knock at the door is impolite and that just won’t do; and really you’re going to just have to abandon sense and cling to sensation of you’re to get anything out of Octavia Trilogy. And that’s just some of the stuff that happens never mind how all that stuff happens.

On the page it all happens in images deliberately evocative of EC horror comics. There’s a fondness for the signature EC 2x3 grid layout and even the use of Leroy lettering ,for that mechanical touch no one actually likes but which is very EC indeed. Most obviously and most immediately (despite being more Warren than EC Comics, but what you gonna do, huh.) Angelo Torres’ influence lends everything a subtly rutted texture. While there’s a certain sense of Wallace Wood in the impression of disparately sourced images unified by sheer strength of style there’s none of Wood's signature EC clutter; none of the  boisterous attention to detail. As the painted cover suggests Hoffman’s  emphasis is far more on Frazetta for the figure work and overall feel. Great as all that stuff is (and it is great should your palate be so inclined) there remains the fact that the image in any panel loses focus and fades out the farther it gets from the elements which most interest the artist. Which is fair enough as Octavia Trilogy may not be a work of obsession but it is certainly a work of passionate fixations. Did I mention that those passionate fixations are ridiculous horror films and women of a fetishitically precise set of attributes. I bet I did.

Because it’s important you have no illusions (except that one about there being Justice; Christ, people need something) about this book I must stress again the nature of the work you may be considering subjecting yourself to. As lovingly crafted and handsomely illustrated as it all is it remains a fact that it is all in service to a homage of hypnotically bad movies. The dialogue is stilted and random; clearly English but the kind of English that’s a bit off in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on. People say things that seem to make sense but actually don’t. Early on a guy says he’s exchanged everyone’s passport for the keys to a castle so they can use it as a location for their photo-shoot. I’m not really up on property rental but that doesn’t quite ring true. People say other things and you just wave it through but then the things they said tickle your mind a little later and you wished you’d checked their papers more closely, but they’ve probably exchanged them for the keys to a castle anyway.  As you do. One guy is riddled with arrows but turns up later claiming some photographic plates he had about him(?) saved his life. Well, o-o-okay then. Oddness abounds not just in the things which happen but in the way things happen. Bizarre things occur and no one reacts with much more emotion than James Franciscus thinking about changing his bed linen. The men are all coiffed and tailored in a style that was only ever stylish in such films. They are all collar length hair, cravats, sweaters, slacks and sports cars. You know that all the parts would be played by folk with names unconvincing in the extremity of their Anglicisation (Terrence Shakespeare, Butch Drift, Spencer Bentine with a Very Special Guest Appearance by John Saxon) and their lips would lag behind the dialogue like a tipsy ventriloquist had his hand up all their bums. Basically, things in Octavia Trilogy happen in a way that suggests you keep blacking out at crucial junctures. Smarter folk than I would probably refer to dream like temporal elisions or nightmarishly jarring shifts in mise en scene . What they’d be struggling to articulate is the fact they don't know why but for some reason they like it.

Oh, and don’t get carried away by Octavia being clad in her scanties as Octavia Trilogy is very much a throwback to a much coyer time. While the blurb breathily claims that “Hoffman never tires of drawing her in every imaginable position”(!) it turns out that the hypothetical imagineer in question has a very sedate imagination encompassing activities as outre as walking about, bending down and maybe a bit of jumping around for spice. At its rawest the book has some shadowed kissing and off panel amorous action it is heavily implied extends beyond merely holding hands beneath the covers. The blurb also makes reference to Octavia’s “deep dark Dungeon” and it does actually mean a deep dark dungeon but at least now everyone knows what kind of mind you have, Buster. But is it the kind of mind that can handle Octavia Trilogy; the comic that acts bad but is actually GOOD!?

Has malefic Evil even been darker than on that storm torn night Nature ruptured and spat forth - COMICS!!!

“Extremely Unlikely, And Definitely Improbably, But Not IMPOSSIBLE” COMICS! Sometimes It's A Whole New World. We Just Need Some Magic Carpets And We're Set To Go!

Hello. I read a comic, did a little dance. Felt it needed more work as a critical medium and fell back on words. Sometimes the Old Ways are best. Anyway, this... SOVEREIGN #1 Art by Paul Maybury Written by Chris Roberson Coloured by Paul Maybury with Jordan Gibson Lettered by John . Hill Image, Paper $2.99 Digital £1.99 (2014) Sovereign created by Maybury & Roberson

At the risk of unsettling my regular readers I thought I’d cut right to the nub of the matter this time out; Sovereign is Fantasy. It’s the kind of Fantasy with swords and monsters and cloaks and a classy upper case F. Sovereign is not that tawdry lower case f type of fantasy involving you, a Nixon mask, Kinder eggs and Miss Ga-Ga (Yes, Miss Ga-Ga; because that filly’s no Lady, I’ll be bound). More simply Sovereign is Fantasy a la Game of Thrones. I picked that because everyone knows Game of Thrones and this is very much like that, and that’s no bad thing. If you like Game of Thrones you’ll probably like Sovereign is what I’m getting at there. That’s all I need to say really so there you go. What? No, I don’t watch (or read) Game of Thrones; I did watch the first episode and it was okay (the highlight, naturally, being 1970s Martin Amis as Tyrion Lannister) but I didn’t feel any burning need to carve out a small niche in my life for it. But I think I will for this book because it caught my fancy with its off kilter visuals and intelligent approach.

Also, quite a lot happens. So much happens in fact that Roberson has to carve his book into three chunks. Each chunk introduces a set of cast members intended to represent the mind-set of their particular societies. Since two of the chunks involve groups in transit the contrasts being offered are very much cultural rather than geographical. While we are treated to several of Maybury’s lovely locales none of them really come into too clear a focus (plus one bunch of folk are on a boat and the sea is pretty much the sea even in Scrabble Name Land) so it’s obvious the book is more bothered about the characters. The first trio of whom we meet being three members of the Luminari, which is a sect of spiritual ghost fighters who also flense corpses like master butchers under conditions of extreme duress. They are off see the Tamurid, the current rulers of Khend. It’s in this section that your eye has to acclimatise to Maybury’s off kilter approach to POVs and his art’s general air of swollen decay. I was thinking a lot about tainted sausages during this section. The spur to our spiritual pals’ pilgrimage is some rum business which we will soon see is getting the plot rolling in at least two other areas of Countdown Conundrum Land. No sooner have you noticed that our trio are in fact a cheekily recast Batman (Paladin), Robin (Raven) and Alfred Pennyworth (The Practician) than they are up their nuts in guts and it’s a cliffhanger cut to the next section.

Wherein we meet the Tamurid. The Tamurid are a kind of Steppes warrior bunch and among their number they count the book's Conan analogue. Because his Dad is Khan (no, not Ricardo Montalban) Janramir gets to generally fart about like any rich kid but with the milieu specific emphasis on killing things, laughing around campfires with other lusty men and voicing the eternal Barbarian’s Lament about perfumed men who fight only with words. In this part Maybury has a good time drawing horses so big and thick they are scarier than the big and thick men who ride them. Back at the writing Roberson does some time lapse stuff where the chat flows as if in real time but the images jump from night to day and incident to incident; I like this because people generally do just talk about shit that’s bothering them like maybe going over it one more goddamn time will make it go away. Luckily Roberson realises there’s no need to actually subject the reader to all that repetition. Better to suggest it and to do so cleverly. Take note, jabber jockeys. Alas, all wasteful things must come to an end and Janramir is told his Dad’s dead. Downer. The inference is that he’s going to have to go back and wade through the kind of internecine rivalry and callous backstabbing familiar to anyone with siblings who’s Mum has died and not said who can have her jewellery.

The third and final part of the comic introduces us to a boat borne band whose fictional culture is clearly that of renaissance(?) Britain but, you know, a bit different; more credulity in magic and that stuff. There’s Pol Ravenstone; a bloke whose head is always in a book and prefers others to do the physical stuff, so he’s the only normal person in the comic (cough!); Lady Joselyn Evrendon, a lady it’s heavily hinted at is a bit cold and let’s hope her character arc isn’t as obvious as “sworn virgin” would lead us to infer; and then there’s Argus Mag Donnac, a violent and ill-bred man in tartan i.e. a Scot. The big set piece cracks off in this bit so I won’t spoil it; it’s good. 'S exciting if slightly hampered by a lack of clarity on the part of the restlessly inventive Maybury. I couldn’t really get a fix on the size of the ship or exactly what was happening but it was a quite hectic series of remarkably uncommon events so that may have been intentional.

For the page count of a single comic in 2014 a lot of ground gets covered; I don’t know how much ground because Sovereign omits to give us a map. Which is odd because if Sovereign were a book it would have a map in the front, but it’s not it’s a comic so it has prose in the back. The first time through I didn’t read that bit because I shouldn’t need to. And I didn’t need to. The words at the back worked the way they should, as an appendix which enhanced and deepened what went before. But what had gone before stood solidly enough by itself. I also liked Roberson’s use of quotes from sources in his fake world to preface (and on occasion end) his chapters. This gave everything a bit of extra import and because he’s made them up they could fulfil their narrative purpose more precisely and, more importantly, we didn’t have to suffer that same fucking Nietzsche quote about the abyss everyone trots out. Hey, comic book writers? Read a book every now and again; they don’t fucking bite. Chris Roberson obviously reads books and it seems to be working out okay for his writing, I'd say.

I’m old and move slow so there are a number of issues (Sigh. Yes, I could have checked but my nails are drying, dear. This is strictly amateur hour, you know.) of this series now available but I just read the first. I’ll be picking up the others and I hope Maybury’s art continues to provide a quirky compliment to Roberson’s nifty scripting. However, he might just want to keep an eye on the levels of quirk involved. Looking at issue two’s cover it appears the cast is to be joined by the cuckolded homophobe Ray Purchase from Toast of London. While this would make it the best comic ever, as that probably isn’t going to happen Sovereign will have to settle for just being GOOD!

And remember that there may not be elves, Sam, but there are always - COMICS!!!

“There's Nothing WRONG WITH YOU That I Can't Fix..WITH MY TENTACLES!" COMICS! Sometimes Comics Are Like The Sponge And Must Go Porous!

In which I unwisely blurt out some words about a Spongebob comic. If yesterday's ridiculous farrago is any indication it will in fact really be about Tarot's chest and largely entail me shouting like a crazy person about people misusing the land in front of my house. Or maybe I got my boat to float this time out. Altogether now, Kids..! By Chabot, Kochalka, HiFi & Comicraft

Anyway this...

SPONGEBOB COMICS ANNUAL-SIZE SUPER-GIANT SWIMTACULAR #2 Art by Israel Sanchez, Robert Leighton, Rick Neilsen, Jacob Chabot, Jose Delbo, Jay Lender, Nate Neal, R Sikoryak Written by James Kochalka, Mark Martin, Derek Drymon, Israel Sanchez, Jay Lender, Paul Karasik Coloured by HiFi, Glenn Whitmore, Mike DeVito Lettered by Comicraft United Plankton Pictures, $4.99 (2014) Spongebob created by Stephen Hillenburg

Cover by Israel Sanchez, logo by David Coulson

Comedy, like death, is no respecter of age and so like most comics, or water logged sponges, aimed squarely at the faces of children this also spatters adults; yes, both I and The Boy liked it Now, admittedly, I could be overestimating this comic’s worth for it was Spongebob Squarepants which finally dislodged such luminaries as Mr Tumble, The Wiggles and Bear in The Big Blue House from their positions of dominance in The Boy’s (and thus mine also, alas) televisual diet. As well intentioned and big hearted as infants’ television may be it is a fact that it soon reduces any adult mind to gruel. But once Spongebob Squarepants was on it was a mere hop, skip and a jump to Chowder and Flapjack before our minds finally slid to a stop in our current HD addled state of awe before Regular Show and Adventure Time. Me, I’m of a mind that such programmes seem to shame most adult shows but then my mind is probably still more than a little viscous. I have a lot of time for Spongebob Squarepants is what I’m getting at there. Even so this was still a neat little comic.

By Lender & DeVito

It’s a neat little comic because it’s made by people who know how to make comics and who clearly love comics. From the Super-Friends homage cover to the parodies of tropes and tat peddling ads inside there’s no doubt about a lack of love of the form on anyone's part. There is no such lack.The comic takes the form of a series of shorts set up by an intro in which the genially clear art by Jacob Chabot prevents the usual cloying nonsensicality of James Kochalka curdling on the page. Basically you’re reading a comic Spongebob is reading and although this illusion is somewhat spottily applied it is still applied well enough for you to get the gist. There’s a Mermaid Man tale in which Barnacle Boy swaps minds with a seahorse due to their both having been struck by Undersea Lightning (The rarest Lightning of all!) and confusion ensues. Should you not find the idea of underwater lightning, or even just the words Mermaid Man, slightly amusing then Jose Delbo and Derek Drymon’s well-turned tale will leave you as cold as the corpse you clearly are. There’s an Imaginary Story (because after all…) in which the grim’n’gritty is lampooned ludicrously and Jay Lender pushes comedy invention really hard in the small of its back by giving Spongebob a different costumed get-up in every panel. Alas, Israel Sanchez' effort revolving largely around excesses of ooze and gloop was more to The Boy’s taste than mine but it was to someone’s taste and even I liked it fine, it just didn’t shine. And then the book ends so strong it could well juggle boulders.

By Sikoryak & Karasik

Because get this, this comic, a children’s comic, ends with a mash up of Spongebob Squarepants and Fletcher Hanks’ Stardust executed by R Sikoryak and Paul Karasik. that’s right, R SIKORYAK! It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, to steal from Keats (because I’m sure he’d agree were he to have read this comic.) Ah, it’s crazy and it’s beautiful is what it is. Obviously, and also tragically, you are not me so you might disagree on the merits of each of the episodes but even so humours remain high throughout thanks to Robert Leighton & Mark Martin. They scatter throughout a series of fake adverts which successfully riff on all those near illegally misleading exhortations for ridiculous junk you spent a Hell of a lot longer daydreaming about than you ever did revising for the exams which would shape your future. And by you I mean me. And those misplaced priorities more than anything might explain why a middle aged man is sitting here extolling the virtues of a comic about an exuberantly stupid talking sponge. However, I prefer to think it is because Spongebob Comics Annual-Size Super-Giant Spectacular #2 is VERY GOOD! Well, I would prefer to think that wouldn’t I?

By Martin & Leighton

And remember: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? COMICS!!!

"HER AG-GRES-SIVE-NESS DOES NOT/COM-PRO-MISE HER FEM-I-NIN-ITY" COMICS! Sometimes Everyone Was Robot Fighting (Those Kicks Were Fast As Lightning)!

America! How's that 4th of July Weekend thing going for you? Man, Canada just touches itself for one day but you lot take a whole weekend! Always fireworks on the4th of July as Max Cady said. Hope you all had a truly lovely time even though you are basically breaking our balls over here. No hard feelings! Here's some words about comics. Hey, Magnus, can you guess which I liked best?

Nope. Anyway, this... MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER #1 thru 3 Art by Cory Smith Written by Fed Van Lente Coloured by Mauricio Wallace Lettered by Marshall Dillon Magnus Robot Fighter created by Russ Manning Dynamite, $3.99 (2014) (After a couple of weeks it's $1.99 on the Dark Horse Digital App)

It’s the man in the skirt who lays down the hurt! It’s Magnus: Robot Fighter! Apparently this is one of a number of old Gold Key properties Dynamite are slapping on the table, applying the creative juice to and then stepping back and yelling “CLEAR!” to see if enough folk give a chuff in the 21st Century; which is where we live now, apparently. Boy, you just blink and there go two decades. Anyway, as you have guessed I only bought this because I am old and cannot cope with modern comics and ceaselessly seek succour via nostalgia.  Yeah, guess again, Pop Tarts; I don’t know anything about Gold Key properties because we never saw them in my neck of the woods. Back then depending on where you were in England you got different American comics. The seaside had the best stuff, or different stuff (and when you’re a kid the stuff you can’t normally get is the best stuff). I don’t know where the Gold Key stuff went, Sidcup perhaps. I’ve never been to Sidcup. Or me. So, yes, comics, John; in your own time now. I just bought this, um,  because at my age buying a comic sight unseen is the height of profligate recklessness. I didn’t know what I was going to get so I wasn’t expecting much, just some dude called Magnus and some robot fighting and, yea verily, I got that but I got a chunk more besides. And that’s why I went back for the next issue. And the next.

Sure, the first issue was just(!) solid; sure the first issue went exactly where you instinctively knew it would as soon as you saw the snow globe on the first page; sure younger readers would have been thinking of The Matrix and older readers would have been thinking of Philip K Dick and some would even have thought of Plato’s Cave, but they would have been dead for centuries so I don’t know what they’d be doing buying comics in the 21st Century. With the initial issue it was easy to take the writing for granted and just be bewitched by the  lovely art and colours. Yes, I actually appreciated Mauricio Wallace's colours, although they were so clearly appealing you’d have to actually exert energy to avoid appreciating them. Lovely, lovely colours all soft and alluring where needed and harsh when required but never, never settling for that uniformly gloss glare so common now.  And the art by Corey Smith is just aces (technical term). Absolutely gorgeous work which like the colours never sticks to a one note approach but varies the register of its approach as the mutable contents it depicts require. Corey Smith is playing a blinder here, and it's a shame because I bet a lot of eyes aren't pointing in this direction. Well, your eyes lose then!

Like I rambled already there’s not a lot that leaps out and throttles you in the first issue; it sets out the premise smoothly and succinctly with a twist or two for spice, and you think the series' tone has largely been set. And you're...wrong, in an entirely pleasing way. Because bewilderingly, but not unpleasantly so, the second issue decides to be a buddy comedy with a particularly pointed kick at the slightly ethnic sidekick trope to boot. Magnus picks up a robo-sidekick who's personality is an explicitly terrible example of the movie comedic sidekick who is also a Gentleman of Colour, as my late Grandma said. (This is different to a Colourful Gentleman who would be a man who likes other men in a romantic way.) In the third issue the team up the ante so hard your uncle slaps her right there at the family dinner table and  you can hear a pin drop. This was my favourite of the three issues since it just draws a big old clown face on all those pandertastic comics featuring damaged ladies who become strong and which believe women are only of interest if they are kick boxing lumps of scar tissue with nice hair who have sexytimes on their own terms. Yes, some ladies like that and that’s great but, c’mon, the real appeal is to the boys. When I show my own Prisoner of Misogyny these Ladyspy and Sad Killer comics the first thing she asks even before her eyes stop rolling is, “Is she damaged? Oh please, let her be damaged!”  And the answer is yes, the answer is always: yes she’s damaged.  With all the change-ups and change-overs in just three issues if I were a high-faluting type I'd maybe say the comic was a bit meta, a bit post modern, but I don't think anyone uses those words with enough rigour for them to mean much these days, so let's say Magnus: Robot Fighter is playful and leave it at that. Sure, there is a downside to all this creative flexibility and that comes in the form of a lack of focus and a kind of failure to define Magnus himself. I don’t really know what Magnus is after, he just sort of wanders about fighting robots and looking pensive. But there's time yet and I'd rather applaud the display of creative facility than prate about a lack of character depth in a man who fights robots.

I liked this, I liked every issue and with each issue I liked it more. For a few pennies I found a satisfyingly weird and beautifully illustrated comic which, yes, seems to be less about robot fighting than Lazy Comic Trope Fighting. And, perhaps, clichés are more dangerous to Comics than robots. Perhaps Magnus has a point after all. C'mon! Magnus: Cliché Fighter! How can that not be GOOD!

SOUTHERN BASTARDS #1 and 2 Art by Jason Latour Written by Jason Aaron Colour by Jason Latour Lettered by Jared K Fletcher Southern Bastards created Aaron & Latour Image $3.50 (2014)

I thought this book was beautiful, let's get that out there before things go South. Latour's subdued sepia palette of largely orange and khaki with the odd pop of a more violent hue is just a real deep fried delight. And then that's laid softly over some truly solid gnarliness giving everything a real sense of weight and wear and tear, and the whole thing hovers a gnat's pube from caricature. But the thing itself? I mean, shit, I guess what we have her is...a failure to communicate. Because I didn't cotton none to this at all. I mean, Jesus, really? That’s what we’ve got now? East Bound And Down played straight. Hell, look at you out there; chances are you think you’re special but no matter how special you reckon you are you ain’t Southern Special because that’s a whole ‘nother level of Special right there,  “boy”. Golly, The South sure is special! I’ve never been anywhere near close to The South and all the moth eaten tropes on these pages are as familiar to me as the back of my Dad’s hand (ow! Yes, there are Daddy Issues in this comic). This comic is The South as Theme Park. The South as Postcard Punk. If that's the The Southern Truth then that's plain Southern Sad.

Slightly after the ostentatiously provocative title (Oooh! A doity woid!) the book opens with a double page splash of a dog slipping a turd out which I guess is supposed to shock or something. The South! A place so hard that dogs poop in public! Look, The South, I don’t want to deflate your ballsy balloon but If you look out my front window ten minutes after Eastenders finishes you’ll see a middle aged man with grey hair walk his dog out onto the bit of land out front of my window. And regular as clockwork a big old turd slides out of that beast’s ass and, no, standing with your back to your dog while it does its business doesn’t convince me you don’t know what’s going on, Mr. Man From Round The Corner. So, illegal dog drops ain’t just a Southern thang, I assure you. Interestingly there’s also a tree on that patch of regularly befouled grass but I don’t think it’s growing out of anyone’s ass like the one in this book. (His Daddy's ass! Yes, there are Daddy issues by the pound here) A crueller man than I might say there’s a case to be made that his book is growing out of somebody’s ass.

Oh, technically it’s fine, I guess, if fine means very much a screenplay first and a comic script second which these days is very much what fine means. It’s very televisual. It just sort of lollops about like an ex-pro with a bum knee trying to get to the likker store before it shuts. And you know that while on the screen none of these scenes would outstay their welcome (not so much because of the scintillating script but because Southern actors are always entertaining in the flesh) but on the page they can verge on the interminable. The centrepiece of issue two is a Football game, sorry, an American Football game (why is it called American Football when they barely ever touch the ball with their feet? American Carryball more like it) and it just flounders about like everyone should just naturally give a shit rather than actually making anyone give a shit. Sure, there's Craft here in the writing but there's Art in the colours and, uh, art. It's an uneven mix.

It’s a pretty sorry state of affairs all round if you're reaching for the Mythic and finding a battered VHS of Walking Tall in your mitt. This book is just a clueless monument to swaggering self pity of a particularly male stripe. And I've seen it before and I've read it before and the only reason I'm reading it this time is because of Jason Latour. If it wasn't for Jason Latour this would just be that Trace Adkins Luke McBain comic all over again and no would give one rich shit. Sorry and all, but I don't buy for one hot second that The South is stuck in 1974 like a dino in a tar pit. No, I don't know The South from a hole in the ground but I do credit it with more than that. More than just another comic about men behaving badly but feeling bad about it so boo hoo them. Beat me with a hosepipe if I'm wrong but I think, maybe, to show The South Today I reckon this book need a bit less Walking Tall and a bit more Looking Harder. Basically, if it wasn't for Jason Latour this comic would be two levels down from GOOD! Harsh words maybe, but they can take it; they're Southern Tough!

And remember: Any man playing grab ass or fightin' in the building spends the night reading - COMICS!!!

"Make A NECKTIE With His TONGUE!" COMICS! Sometimes You Can't Put Lipstick On A Bat!

Well what with all the IT hilarity I don't know whether this will be here tomorrow but let's live for today and look at some Batman comics. That's what they mean, right, when they say live each day like there's no tomorrow, right? They mean read some Batman comics. I mean if people seriously lived life for the moment then there'd be no societal infrastructure and stuff would just never get done; you know what folk are like they would be be looting, murdering and rutting like dogs in the street. It'd be like a prison riot but the whole world would be the prison. Now I think about it, Live each day like there's no tomorrow is some pretty shitty advice. Um, it's very hot here today. Look...it's BATMAN! Well, Damian Son of Batman anyway. By Kubert, Anderson & Napolitano

Anyway, this... DAMIAN SON OF BATMAN #2, 3 & 4 Art by Andy Kubert Written by Andy Kubert Coloured by Brad Anderson Lettered by Nick Napolitano Cover by Andy Kubert & Brad Anderson Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger DC Comics $3.99 each (2014)

Due to the vagaries of my comics receipt system I only read three out of the four issues of this series so maybe the first issue totally set up some kind of scenario justifying what appeared to be a beautifully illustrated mish-mash of dream lucidity and bestial sadism. I quite liked the childish story logic; at one point Alfred keels over and dies and his spirit starts talking through the Batcave cat (Nanananananananana…Batcat!) without any explanation whatsoever. Damian Son of Batman is a flexible sort and takes this in his stride, being thereafter advised and supported by a talking cat hosting the spirit of Alfred Pennyworth; clearly a thing of great awesomeness.

By Kubert, Anderson & Napolitano

A thing of considerably somewhat less awesomeness is the brutality of the book. This reaches a crescendo of idiocy when Damian Son of Batman goes to rescue Batman (Nanananananananana…Batdad!) from a Faux- Joker (Real Joker we are told being permanently indisposed) and Damian Son of Batman gets a tight grip on Faux-Joker’s sternum and pops him open like a big old taco filled with man guts. That splashy bit of magic is in service to what I guess is the point of the series: even under the greatest of duress Damian Son of Batman surprises himself and won’t cross that line (you know; That Line) and kill. This is slightly undermined by the fact that even a medical cretin like myself knows that Faux-Joker will die of shock or bleed out in about ten minutes. Luckily Real Joker (permanency not being what it was these days; this series truly makes no sense) shows up to shoot Faux-Joker in the head before this happens. Tah-dah! No Blood on Damian Son of Batman’s gloves. Totally not his fault. That’s some weaselly shit right there, folks! Yeah, I know that in the Golden Age Batman routinely used to saw people’s legs off and kick them around like a screaming football in front of an orphanage while giggling like a naughty schoolgirl, and yet I remain steadfast in my belief that asking why Batman doesn’t kill says more about the questioner than it does about any imaginary paper vigilante. But I guess I can see why people might wonder because I’m not sure if anyone knows what the point of Batman is anymore.

By Kubert, Anderson & Napolitano

At the end of this comic a family are threatened at gunpoint and Batman saves them. Usually that’d be it but not here; here Batman only saves them after the mother has been shot in the head (in front of her kids; oh yeah, comics!). What? Yes men get killed but that's different (they're men). So, y’know, Batman saves some of them and the rest are doomed to a future of coping and trauma (but we don’t see that bit, that bit would be realistic but it’s not sexy like seeing a mother slaughtered in front of her children like she’s cattle is; that’s sexy time right there. Mothers shot in the head?; did it just get hot in here or is it me? I only came to read the meter! MiaoooW! Christ, put that thing away, I was being sarcastic. What the Hell is wrong with you people out there?) I guess that happens because it’d be unrealistic (childish, even) to expect Batman to save everyone. Realism of course being the core component of a series about a rich lunatic dressed as a bat solving problems with violence.

By Kubert, Anderson & Napolitano

Seriously, the writing just shanks this whole thing so very, very badly and I was, I honestly was, predisposed to like this Why? Because Batman! A Kubert! Self-contained series! And because visually this series was right up my (crime) alley being a totally, outrageously opulent parade of images the sumptuousness of which distracted from any panel to panel failings or any slight suspicion that the detail sought to mask some basic structural problems. Even the colouring here is just crazy-good with subtle layering effects giving things almost an extra dimension and just a lovely, textured, pastelly finish to everything. It’s even printed on paper like they had back when you could hold open doors without being spat at. Paper! The kind of paper that if you pissed on it would absorb the piss rather than the piss just bouncing off and back at you like it does might with that chemical shit most comics are printed on. That stuff’s paper like hot dogs are meat. I’m hiding it well so only my nearest and dearest could tell but I’ll come clean: the mix of the silly but fizzy verve of a Bob Haney and the thuggishly humourless carnage just fell flat for me. Like uncooked ground beef drizzled with Maple Syrup the combination of elements in Damian Son Of Batman was just a bad idea all round and was AWFUL!

Nananananananananana...COMICS!!!

“I Ran ‘em!” COMICS! Sometimes Even The Flash looks Like An Aimless Dawdler In Comparison!

The comics I’m on about this week were not only originally published before you were born they were originally published before I was born; well, just. Tasty! They feature a man who can run really fast but instead of fighting crime and talking killer gorillas he instead wins races in bleak Northern towns purely for his own satisfaction. Somewhere in that comparison I think there lurks the crux of the difference between the American and English characters. Best not to dwell on it, eh?

Anyway, this… VICTOR: THE BEST OF ALF TUPPER THE TOUGH OF THE TRACK Art by Pete Sutherland(?) Written by Gilbert Lawford Dalton(?) Edited by Morris Heggie Foreword by Brendan Foster CBE Alf Tupper The Tough of The Track created by Bill Blaine £12.99, Prion Books (2012) Collects Tough of The Track strips from the boy’s weekly Victor circa the ‘60s and ‘70s and some one pager sports quizzes, puzzles etc.

I bought this book from one of those remaindered book places that have cut price art supplies, paperbacks three for two, misery lit by the ton, Nana Thingy from The Only Way is Essex’ biography and, comics-wise, maybe one How To Draw Manga book stuffed in the wrong place with the cover bent back, and that’s if you’re lucky, mate. As witnesses to my charmed and wholly frictionless life so far will attest I am nothing if not lucky and so it was little wonder that recently I chanced upon one such shop that had a whole wall of trade paperbacks. Alas, on closer inspection it turned out there was a reason they were in the remaindered book shop. However, I will practically sprain something avoiding leaving such a book centred scenario empty handed and so, after a bit of hunting about, here we are with Victor: The Best of Tough of The Track. I see a lot of blank faces out there; don’t worry I’d never heard of it before either.

It turns out Victor: Tough of The Track isn’t the name of a comic about someone called Victor who is an enforcer for a bookie but is in fact the name of a comic strip about a man called Alf Tupper who lived to run. It started in 1949 in Rover before crossing over to Victor. For foreign visitors to these shores I should point out that both Rover and Victor were British boys weekly periodicals; a mix of text features, prose stories and comic strips. There was a sexual apartheid enforced by comics of the time with boys weeklies and girls weeklies being distinct and never the twain should meet lest certain ‘tendencies’ manifest themselves. The boys’ publications usually had manly and rugged names often suggesting chivalrous notions or failing that animals which could take your face off e.g. Hotspur, Valiant, Eagle, Tiger and Lion. These thoroughly decent and upstanding comics were just before my time; my time being more the time of Action, Battle, 2000AD etc. These latter were more rough and tumble with a far more pronounced emphasis on pictures than text. Victor and its papery brethren were comparatively staid with most of Brit comics’ signature anarchic energy diverted off into separate humour titles e.g. Whizzer & Chips, Buster, Beano, Shiver & Shake and The Dandy. I don’t know the years these all appeared or ended but I remember they all existed with more besides. Christ, even a massive sociopath like me is getting all blurry eyed thinking of all the comics that once graced the newsagents of this land. Plentiful like the buffalo they were, albeit somewhat easier to fit between Tit-Bits and The People’s Friend. Anyway all this maundering eldster stuff was just a bit of local colour for context and to prepare you for the revelation that Alf Tupper isn’t a fascistic future cop, a big shark with a hook in his jaw or a maniac hunting the Japanese Army in the jungles of Burma; he’s a working class lad who lives to run in races.

Readers expending far more thought on this than I have will have noted the date of publication and the subject matter and concluded correctly that the spur to this collection was the then imminent Olympic Games. In 2012 these Games were held in the United Kingdom. It’s a closely guarded secret but they took up most of the country because England consists only of London and a thin strip of land two miles wide called T’North before you hit Scotland. For several months the entire English population not employed in catering and prostitution was relocated by draughty trucks to cling to the coastline in bed & breakfasts while people from all over the world gathered to see who could throw things farthest, move quickest, boo David Cameron hardest and, more importantly, to stop the country from going bankrupt by buying lots of those big sponge hands. You’ve probably guessed that when it comes to sport I have more interest in the Repeal of The Corn Laws. (And I have no interest in The Repeal of The Corn Laws.) Reading this book though I learned a lot about running. Previously I thought this was something you did only when being chased by someone with a knife but apparently people do it for fun. Yes, running is a sport apparently. According to Tough of The Track running is all about spurting and timing your spurt correctly; spurting too soon is disastrous leading as it does to a humiliating and early washout and it’s best not to be carried away by another’s rhythm and rather to always spurt on your own terms when you are good and ready thus ensuring a satisfactory finish. Some useful life lessons there via running from Alf Tupper The Tough of The Track.

It’s not all about running though as that would be a pretty boring way to fill these pages. Essentially it seems each episode was the same; every week Alf Tupper ran a race and every week Alf Tupper would win that race. Okay, that’s not strictly true, but even when he lost Alf won. See “The Winner Came Fourth!” herein. It’ll all make sense in context. Races? Alf ran ‘em. Records? Alf beat ‘em. While repetition was a hallmark of Brit comics strips there was always some form of variety. Before he ran every race Alf had to get to it first and the obstacles in the plucky tyke’s way provided the variations on the strip’s theme and judging by this book they could get quite outlandish. There’s the challenging but plausible time Alf was involved in a car smash and had to carry the driver to help through a snowstorm before running and winning his race; there’s the time he stowed away to go to “Rakovia”, was arrested as a spy, beaten and interrogated before running and winning his race; there’s the time he interrupted his race to use his welding skills to help save a trapped man from a collapsing chimney stack and then, naturally, resumed his race; there’s the time he scoffed a steak which had been drugged to prevent a whippet from…look I’m not making any of these up (not even the whippet) and I haven’t even got to the dastardly French kidnap plot or the ghost hoax to save a stables. And Alf Tupper takes all this stuff in his stride.

In fact Alf takes everything in his stride. He routinely breaks records and wins prestigious races and the second his chest breaks the tape he’s off back home. Because it’s all about the run for Alf. If there’s a picture of Alf lifting a trophy or accepting a cheque in this book I don’t remember it. There’s definitely no standing atop a podium with paid ladies rubbing themselves against him like cats on a scratching post while gouts of champagne froth pumps jizzilly from a celebratory bottle of plonk. No, for Alf Tupper the race and the win are enough. It’s the kind of attitude you’d never find in a professional athlete today but is exactly the attitude you’d would want to instil in kids yesterday. As I somewhat vaguely alluded earlier Victor was amongst the last wave of Brit comics which sought to ‘improve’ its audience. (Given this it is strangely remiss of Victor not to note that Kids choosing to follow Alf’s regimen of very little sleep and heavy fish suppers before racing would almost certainly die. Or at least vomit copiously. Have you ever tried to get vomit out of corduroy?) Alf’s practically monastic lifestyle is borne out of a child’s conception of adulthood. Alf has his trade in welding and this gives him money for his fish’n’chips which in turn gives him the fuel to pursue his love of running. There are no significant females in this strip or in Alf’s life (they appear only in official roles; a policewoman, a landlady, a nurse etc) as the intended audience would be only too well aware that girls are icky and just get in the way of the important stuff; the running. Because some kids back then would have been into the running thing the same way some kids today are into the sitting in chairs and virtually killing people thing. I’m not saying one’s better than the other as that’s not for me to say but I guess we’ll find out next time one of those kids is chased by someone with a knife. As a character Alf Tupper is what used to be called “salt of the earth” and “big hearted”; that is he’s always ready to lend a hand and has a heart bigger than his brain. But Alf Tupper’s real appeal to kids is his freedom. It’s the kind of freedom that comes from being a simple man with simple needs; a kip, some grub and a race to run. The kind of freedom that can only exist on a page.

As well as the portrait of a plucky bloke these strips also present the portrait of a time now gone. There are still bomb craters from the war in which Alf can indulge in some al fresco welding, there are still Municipal baths in which Alf can wash for a couple of pennies, there’s a colliery town and the colliery’s still active, there are cobbled streets, there are horses and carts vying with cars for roadspace, there are railway arches, posh folk in blazers, fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, newspapers themselves, men in macs with little hats and toothbrush moustaches and all of this and all of that and all of the things that made that time then and not now. As far as I can tell (see below) it’s Pete Sutherland who illustrates all this and he does so in a style which is blunt and direct at all times. That is not to say it is dull and without character; Alf has the appealingly open mien of a young James Bolam and the England around him is realistically dour but with a nonetheless stubbornly chipper air. It's scruffy and vigorous stuff as befits the depiction of a vigorous scruff. The unfussy nature of the art is perfectly suited to the humdrum setting. Whether through stylistic choice or fortunate happenstance the lack of embellishment in Sutherland’s art inadvertently provides a credible and valuable visual snapshot of British life at that time. It’s a truer portrait of Britain in the ‘60s and ‘70s than all that tinselly shit about swinging and Mini Coopers that actually had a hard time gaining traction beyond the capital. Bizarrely though for someone illustrating a strip about runners Sutherland draws the daintiest feet I have ever seen on the end of male legs. These are some petite plates of meat is what I’m saying there.

Physically this is a nice volume with hard covers and stiff paper pages which emit that oddly appealing aroma familiar to those unafraid to stick their nose right into the book like it’s a big lovely flower. The images are really crisp and production value wise I’d have to say they’ve done Alf Tupper proud. Unfortunately they haven’t done his creators proud. I had to go and get the Internet out of bed to learn that Bill Blaine created the character and the strip was written by Gilbert Lawford Dalton and illustrated by Pete Sutherland. Having had a further poke about there were plenty of other artists who worked on Tough of The Track but the art in this book seems consistent throughout and I’d say it was all Pete Sutherland’s work. As for the writing your guess is as good as mine, possibly better. In any normal book the authors get a bit of blurb at the back and I don’t see why comics authors should be any different. This failing keeps the book more in the Nostalgia section rather than the Comics History section. I know folk get all shirty when I go on about creators getting their due, because somehow they think I think this makes me better than other people. It doesn’t; I just naturally am better than other people. But I will say this; it’s going to be hard for Comics to have a History if no one knows who did what and when. Gripes aside, I enjoyed this book more than I thought. I imagined a joyless trudge through inert relics of a sad past but it was truly interesting and not a little entertaining in that unassumingly daft way Brit comics once had. In the end, as ever, Alf Tupper ran ‘em. He ran ‘em all. And that’s GOOD!

I’ll just get my head down for forty winks then a quick supper from the chippie and I’ll see what I can do about some – COMICS!!!!

"And If There's No News...I'll Go Out And Bite A Dog!" MOVIES! Sometimes You Can All Komodo My Place And We’ll Watch Some Stuff!

Okay, there’s nothing happening in my head comics wise at the moment. But I wanted to chuck some content up so here’s some stuff about movies. The earliest one here was made in 1947 and the latest one was broadcast a week ago so something for everyone? Highly unlikely. Anyway, this… QUIRKE: Season 1, Episode 1: CHRISTINE FALLS Directed by John Alexander Adapted by Andrew Davies Based on the book by John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black) Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Nick Dunning, Janet Moran, Brian Gleeson, Geraldine Somerville, Michael Gambon etc Music by Rob Lane BBC, 2014

Christine Falls is the first in a trio of newly minted BBC Benjamin Black adaptations; Benjamin Black is the pen name used by John Banville when he’s writing entertainment rather than award winning literature. (No, I don’t know why he feels the need to separate the two.) Now, I haven’t read either his (John Banville’s) literature or his (Benjamin Black’s) entertainment but on screen Christine Falls was one of those dour detective things in which even when the sun is shining it seems like it isn’t. It’s set in Ireland during The Age of Men in Hats and revolves around Gabriel Byrne’s drunken disaster of a pathologist sticking his nose where he shouldn’t and then wishing really, really hard that he hadn’t. It involves family secrets, kids and The Church and since this is Ireland and everything’s shot like we’re in someone’s bowels you can bet it’s not going to be about how The Church and kids are a good mix. The Beeb appeared to have strategically blown most of the budget on Gabriel Byrne and Michael Gambon, thus leaving necessity to mother invention via zooming in on people’s noses for the duration of a conversation or having a close up of some water dripping with rain SFX sizzling on the soundtrack to suggest a storm; it’s the kind of TV thing where Boston is one house, two cars and a coastal road and it works because there’s a strong plot and quality acting taking the strain.

Actually, the biggest problem was nothing to do with the budget but rather the running time. A whole heck of a lot happened over 90 minutes with nary a breath being drawn between each incident. As a result the very hallmarks of this type of fiction (intricate interconnectedness; historical wrongs presented in a fictional context; the past coming back to bite; hero beaten up), seemed more than a little credulity suffocating. Obviously, Television is better than books because you can see things and hear things without any effort on your part but books do have the edge in that over a couple of hundred pages you can pace the proceedings as you like; something this dense probably reads a lot better than it views. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t terrible or anything, just flawed. I certainly did appreciate the way it didn’t end with someone falling off a building in slow motion or exploding in space but instead went with a complete, and deserved, trepanning of the initial cliché of the cheeky and sexually alluring drunken rogue of a hero. I know it’s tricky sticking a book on the screen but they had a fair crack at it here; the worst I can say is it could have done with a bit more running time to stretch its legs in. That’s not bad so I guess it was GOOD!

BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH (AKA OUT OF THE PAST) Directed by Jaques Tourneur Screenplay by Daniel Mainwaring (with James M Cain & Frank Fenton) Based on the novel by Daniel Mainwaring Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb etc Music by Roy Webb RKO, 1947

This is a noir and other folk with more time on their hands can argue about how noir it is. Me, I reckon it’s none more noir; maybe it could do with a bit more German Expressionism but then any expressionism is a bonus when Robert Mitchum’s involved. A joke there; I like Old Bob, he might not have been a great actor but he was always a great Robert Mitchum and the way he plays this patsy to Fate (casually doomed; like an exhausted man spending 90 minutes sliding resignedly off wreckage and into the sea) is just right. Mitchum plays a guy who’s both clever and honest but not enough of either to save himself from Jane Greer’s bright eyed moral vacuum. Everybody else in the film may be a better actor but this movie is Mitchum’s and while Mitchum always looked like he was smuggling a side of beef under his shirt in this movie his presence is positively titanic. So much so that even Kirk Douglas (Kirk Douglas, yet!) looks small, seeming to scamper nattily (and nastily) around Mitchum’s stolid menhir, as Greer’s decidedly fatale femme sneers from the sidelines. This is the movie where Mitchum talks about dying being okay as long as you die last and it’s also the movie where Mitchum says “Baby, I don’t care” so hard the whole world goes weak at the knees. I watched this on the BBC and the print was shocking but that didn’t matter; this is a great film. It’s a great movie about lies and where they lead and yet it’s a movie that’s honest enough to end with a lie setting someone free. And it’s a lie from someone who can’t speak. Like I said; none more noir. I’m a laugh a minute kind of guy and I thought Build My Gallows High was EXCELLENT!

THE WORLD’S END Directed by Edgar Wright Written by Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Rosamund Pike etc Music by Steven Price Universal, 2013

For around three quarters of The World’s End’s run time the slick and inventive direction, skilfully affable acting and fairly amusing jokes (“A poo?” Other bits. ) enabled me to concentrate on the amusing relocation of one of my favourite genre tropes (no spoilers!) to a refreshingly bucolic and familiar setting, and to do so largely to the exclusion of my teeth baring dislike of the menopausal male nostalgia elements it wallowed in so jocularly. And then there was the final half hour. Now, I don’t make movies for a living but it appears self-evident to me that in much the same way as it’s wise to leave the house only after ensuring your cock isn’t hanging out it’s also advisable to have an ending written before you start filming. Otherwise the results are likely to be EH! However, My Lady of Infinite Patience liked it far more than I did so maybe I was just that way out. I understand I can be quite mercurial at times so I could be wrong about this one (TWIST: I’m not).

ACE IN THE HOLE Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels & Walter Newman (from a story by Victor Desny) Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal etc Music by Hugo Friedhofer Paramount Pictures, 1951

It’s tempting to get my Elitism on and taunt the modern viewer by pointing to this movie as evidence that at one time a blockbuster movie, rather than consisting of things hitting each other, could be an examination of the world its audience inhabited so intelligent, incisive and entertaining that it would remain all those things some sixty-three years later. Tempting but untrue, because there’s a lie in there; Ace In The Hole wasn’t a blockbuster. Oh, it should have been a blockbuster; they intended it to be a blockbuster. It had Billy Wilder as director and co-writer, it had a star in Kirk Douglas and the money thrown at it is all on screen. But the money is mostly on show in the form of an expensive mine set to trap Richard Benedict in for the film’s duration; the money is largely spent on making a dark cramped place. And Kirk Douglas, the star, portrays a man with a dark cramped soul; he plays a disgraced reporter (Chuck Tatum; oh man, those old timey names) willing to do almost anything to get back in with the Big City boys; willing even to exploit a man’s tragedy for his own gain. Pretty soon he finds that there’s no almost in it for nearly everyone else around him and it’s not long until everyone is involved in a vortex of sociopathic self-interest and events start to outpace even Chuck Tatum and his fancy footwork.

In the end Tatum finds out that as far as he’s willing to go, others are willing to go further as long as the tab’s picked up by somebody else. And as dreadful as he is (and he is; he’s a real stinker) Tatum still comes out best as all the decent characters prove ineffectual and it’s only Douglas’ character who has a modicum of self-awareness. He actually has to think about how to exploit the situation but for everyone else it’s instinctive. And it’s the most natural of these natural predators, Jan Sterling’s simultaneously satanically self-interested and self-pitying house frau, in whom Tatum decisively meets his match. Wilder didn’t get away with it with Ace in The Hole; he had got away with it in the past because he’d directed his scathing blasts at drunks (Lost Weekend), insurance men (Double Indemnity) and Hollywood (Sunset Blvd); targets Joe Public could disdain without cost. But Ace in The Hole holds up everyone as either a fool or a fraud and it isn’t too particular about stepping on toes. Ace in The Hole leaves a nasty taste in even the dullest of mouths. So Joe Public politely declined and Billy Wilder found out that sometimes you can go too far. I imagine Kirk Douglas survived okay; he was made of stronger stuff; he was made of Kirk Douglas stuff. But Billy Wilder wasn’t. Ace in The Hole’s reception took the wind out of Wilder’s sails for a good few years and his output took a turn for the more comedic. Billy Wilder bit the hand that fed him and paid the price. But that was in the short term and while it’s no comfort to the deceased Billy Wilder it is still a fact that in 2014 A.D. I watched Ace in The Hole and it was EXCELLENT! See, tastes may change but misanthropy don’t date. You can still almost hear Chuck Tatum laughing in the Hell he damned himself to.

SKYFALL Directed by Sam Mendes Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & John Logan. Based on characters created by Ian Fleming Starring: Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear etc… Music by Thomas Newman 007 Theme by Monty Norman MGM & Sony Pictures, 2012

Every now and then I wonder what it’s like to root for The Establishment so I watch a James Bond film. This is a modern one so James Bond is played by a sexy knuckle and every shot is slathered in mustards or teal so that we can pretend this is more serious than a Roger Moore Bond film. It isn’t though. The best bit in this one was when James Bond (played by an aerobicised to within an inch of his life Sid James) sees a Komodo dragon and reacts like a delighted child all pointing index fingers and popping eyes. It was just a split second but it was a great split second. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any other good bits because there were, and while these usually involved, as ever in Bond, a preposterous plot, fantastic tailoring, ridiculous stunts and (mostly foreign (Boo! Hiss!), sometimes ladies, occasionally foreign ladies) people being killed in thrilling fashion they also included some sturdy performances (Dame Judi Dench kicking ass and taking names; Albert Finney as a violent Father Christmas; the sneaky decency of Ralph Fiennes; Rory Kinnear as a wigless Brian Molko; an eight year old child playing Q; Javier Bardem’s flamboyant bad guy (the damp squib of whose ending was partially redeemed by his earlier removal of his dental plate and the consequent collapsing of his face; just like my old Mum “settling down” for the evening). What with all the guff about how people reckoned ready for the knackers yard still have a bit of spit and vinegar in ‘em Skyfall even came close to having a theme; which is good because the best thing I can say about the actual singing theme is that I didn’t actually notice it. Rumour has it (rumour has it (rumour has it (rumour has it))) it was Adele? Not exactly a great compliment for a James Bond theme there; not remembering it. Other than that though this was polished 21st Century blockbuster brains-off, Up The Queen entertainment, so it was GOO(7)D!

No, I don’t expect you to die, Mr. Bond; I expect you to read some – COMICS!!!

“Sometimes I Ride A Horse Too.” COMICS! Sometimes I’m not Bored, I’m Actually Quite Entertained. But Thanks for Asking, Klytus!

Oh hey, I wrote about some comics. Wonders never cease do they? By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

Anyway, this… KINGS WATCH #1 to #5 Art by Marc Laming Written by Jeff Parker Coloured by Jordan Boyd Lettered by Simon Bowland Dynamite Comics (2014) $1.99 each on Dark Horse Digital, $3.99 each on Paper Flash Gordon created by Alex Raymond The Phantom created by Lee Falk Mandrake The Magician created by Lee Falk

By Laming, Boyd, Bowland

Kings Watch (or King’s Watch as it inside the comic) is a five issue attempt by Dynamite to blow the dust off several Kings (no apostrophe) Features characters for the largely bemused perusal of a 21st Century audience. I say largely bemused because while thanks to the joyously tatty energy of the 1980 movie everyone still remembers Flash Gordon his fellow Features have fared less well in the public imagination. Once again neglecting to check with everyone everywhere I feel fairly safe in saying that The Phantom movie of 1996 is not as fondly regarded as Flash’s outing despite the dolorous presence of Patrick McGoohan and the haunting sight of Billy Zane running around the jungle like a muscular grape. As for Mandrake the Magician and the movies I’m afraid even I haven’t a clue, darlings. Comics wise it appears The Phantom has been less dormant than I thought having recently appeared in series published by both Moonstone and Dynamite, and Flash has had a recent series with Alex Ross covers and a readership confined to one nice man in Ottawa. The only movement on the Mandrake front seems to be a newspaper strip collection due to appear before our very eyes shortly. It’s all a bit messy really isn’t it? So, I guess Kings Watch is intended to both streamline and refine these properties with an eye to maximising their potential across a range of multimedia platforms going forward. Or, you know, whatever people in ironic glasses say in rooms with white boards while sipping overpriced coffee bought in from a quaint little bodega down the street. The rest of us should just be concerned with whether these old characters are in are good comics.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

And they are good comics and what helps is that (some of) the characters have had a bit of a remodel for The Now they are intended to inhabit. Flash Gordon and chums require very little refurb with Parker simply, but effectively, updating Flash as a thrill seeking but focus deprived athlete par excellence; Dale remains female and the strange choice is made not to make her a regretful super assassin (“She Could Kill Any Man Alive! But She Could Never Kill The Sadness Inside!”) but rather a level headed, resourceful and strikingly unflappable human being (FFS! Who can relate to that? At least give her guns in her eyes or something!), and Zarkov as the comedy nutter gets most of the laughs via the drunken arrogance which colours his genius so vividly. Having read none of his recent outings I don’t really know how much tinkering Parker had to do but here The Phantom is a mass of scar tissue and arthritic inflammation poured into a bright purple body suit topped off by a domino mask and a zebra patterned truss. He could be a tiresome violent old man type but Parker gives him a nice line in dead pan humour which lightens him up a bit. The character Parker seems to do least to is the one who would seem to require the most tinkering to avoid obsolescence; Mandrake The Magician. Parker doesn’t reinvent him as an “edgy” young street magician or a clapped out old Vegas showman with a tragic past but instead, and remarkably, seems to leave him pretty much untouched. Yes, in King’s Watch Mandrake the Magician remains a magician from back when magicians dressed like the Kaiser was coming to dinner and it wasn’t just serial killers who sawed ladies in half. All this tickling’n’tinkering was just dandy by me because the appealing goofiness of the characters remained; it just wasn’t front and centre like it used to be, that’s all.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

The actual series these characters inhabit may be somewhat stately paced but each issue does contain, in varying but satisfying proportions, an action set piece or two, some engaging character work, a sure sense of progression and, just past the mid-way point, some rather unfortunate developments surprising in both their sweep and suddenness. Let’s just say London’s in it and if London’s in your American genre comic you know that things have probably gone shit side up. The good guys are on the back foot because, unusually for a bad guy, Ming actually has a pretty good plan. He’s quiet droll as well, Ming is, which I liked. Not as much as I liked the fact he wasn’t coloured bright yellow because these properties? Probably a bit of racist baggage, yeah. But Kings Watch deals well with this throughout and the ending subtly recasts things in the direction of greater inclusivity so anyone worrying about all those racist bits from the past of these strips can relax. Unless those were the bits you like, I mean UKIP supporters read comics too; besides The Daily Mail, I mean. Me, I was particularly taken with the bit near the end when everyone realises what they have to do to stop things getting worse and the attendant cost it will inflict on them. I liked this bit not because I love to wallow in other people’s misery (although I do) but because refreshingly there’s no weeping and wailing, there’s no pages of E*M*O*T*I*O*N*S like it’s the backmatter of an Image book, no, they just go and do it because, heroes. Remember those? Well this comic does. Damn straight. With the modern tendency for comics to actually avoid an ending it’s worth noting when one as good as the one here appears.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

Those still awake will note I’ve treated the series as a big lump rather than individually teasing out the art, the writing, the colouring and the lettering. That’s just because I didn’t have time (like Graeme & Jeff I am involved in a Secret Project; mine is Not Getting Sacked, it’s an on-going thing) and also because the fact that the end product was so enjoyable should be testament to the work of all involved. Kings Watch is solid stuff with everyone pulling their weight but no one single contributor showboating and overshadowing the others. Thankfully then there’s no real reason for me to drone on for several hundred grammatically suspect words about Parker’s steady pacing, entertaining characters, or even to single out his unobtrusive humour which seems to occur naturally from the premise, strengthening rather than undermining the drama; nor need I flail desperately about trying to explain why although I still find Laming’s art a little on the stiff side he has come on great guns since I last saw his work on American Century, and that while his art may be more efficient than astounding efficiency is nothing to cock a snook at. Apparently though I do have time to say I thought there could have been a bit more of a stylistic differentiation between the discrete elements of Mongo and Earth to ensure their interaction carried a bit more visual fizz. Hey, I even noticed the colours because some of the FX and palettes really popped on a screen and I say screen because, yes, I continue to force my face into The Future. And because I read Kings Watch in Digital the choice to present most of this series in largely widescreen panels punctuated by the odd splash page for impact worked a treat. Guided View worked fine for most of it and then a bit of manual intervention on the splashes. (Make your own jokes up on that one, knock yourself out. My treat.) Remarkably, old as I am I managed to navigate the thing without soiling myself and crying. Of course I could really do with some advice about how to get images off my tablet and into Photobucket. (I was kind of getting a bit desperate for googled images by the end of this but I think I got away with it.)That would be almost as GOOD! as Kings Watch was.

Now dispatch War Rocket Ajax and bring me some – COMICS!!!

“The Weaving of Ornate Tapestries Glorifying Our Ancestors and Their Bygone Way of Life." COMICS! Sometimes I Treat You Like My Local Library And Continue To Patronise You!

This week I visited my library and took out and read a recent-ish TPB of some quite old Conan comics, 1982 or thereabouts. Then I tried to put my thoughts about ‘em into what them there clever folks call words. I think it worked out about as well as that usually does for me. Probably a lot less well for you. One thing I did discover was that the Hyborian equivalent of Occam’s Razor was Conan’s Rock:

Anyway, this… THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN VOLUME 20: NIGHT OF THE WOLF AND OTHER STORIES Art by John Buscema, Gary Kwapisz, Ernie Chan, Steve Leialoha, Bob Camp & Rudy Nebres Written by Michael Fleisher Lettered by Janice Chiang Coloured by Peter Dawes, Wil Glass and Donovan Yaciuk Conan created by Robert E Howard Dark Horse Comics, $18.99 (2010) This volume collects Conan the Barbarian issues #151- #159 (originally published by Marvel Comics), newly coloured, with all of the original series covers, a foreword comprising the first short part of an interview with Ernie Chan, and with a brand new pinup by Ernie Chan.

My first thought on seeing this book was to wonder who in the name of Belit’s water wings needed twenty Dark Horse volumes of reprinted Marvel Conan comics. My second thought, and one which ran so hard on the heels of the first it risked tripping it up, was how could I get every single one of all those twenty Dark Horse volumes of reprinted Marvel Conan comics. Seeing Conan comics on the shelves of my local library had transported me (sigh; yes, that’s right, figuratively not literally) back to the days when those Marvel comics were actually coming out and also back to the days when my reading erred towards quantity rather than quality. This is a point often overlooked when it comes to kids and reading; it doesn’t really matter how good the reading matter is, it only matters that there’s lots of it. Basically, the kids that do read, well, they really read. They really go for it reading wise, those kids that read, and quality doesn’t really come into it. They don’t even particularly have to be interested in what they are reading, they just have to not be disinterested in it. Which is why I find it baffling that Comics Companies act like the kids demographic is beneath them. First, nothing is beneath Comics Companies (nothing, I say!) and second, Kids would eat that violent crap they poop out up with a spoon. Or if you’re uncomfortable with the unfortunate and unintended mixing of kids and scat back there let’s say they’d read it with their eyes. After all, the young me read every Robert E Howard (REH) etc Conan book in the library but I didn’t actually care for them all that much. I didn’t dislike them or anything. I only really remember that the covers were the most exciting bits, they were published by Sphere (I don’t know why I remember that; I was boring even then?) and I enjoyed the Conan comics way more. Years after it came out I remember getting that Conan Treasury Edition (#4) from a market stall on a day trip to Blackpool; at the stately age of ten Barry Windsor Smith and Roy Thomas’ adaptation of REH’s Red Nails seemed like the most grown up thing in the world. Except for my Dad, anyway. Of course the twin hidden tragedies of this opening, digressive and purely warm up paragraph are that I no longer have that Conan Treasury edition and the young me is dead now. So, let’s see what the old me, in his bitterly truculent way made of some old Marvel Conan comics reprinted between two covers by Dark Horse.

By Buscema, Leialoha, Fleisher et al

It takes Michael Fleisher a couple of issues to get over his impulse to regularly update us on the state of Conan’s thews (e.g. in #159 they are “bronzed”), and this initially distracted me from noticing that the stories in here are pretty basic on the Conan Scale. Which is okay because, and I make no apologies for this, I don’t mind my Conan being basic. Your basic Conan story should involve a woman, a wizard, a monster and a horse. Conan should ride off on one of those carrying another after having have killed all the rest. Usually he’d ride off on the horse with the woman but we’re all more open minded these days so more permissive permutations may be indulged in the safety of your own skull. Michael Fleisher (with an assist from Buscema, see later) recognises that there’s still plenty of room to manoeuvre even within that format and gives us werewolves, demons in metal dungarees, flying people, Hyborian Age rohypnol and other things I’ve forgotten. To be honest Conan stories have a hard time holding my attention, mostly because of the made up names which just fail to gain traction in my head. Except when there is a wholly unintended comical effect. Such as when Michael Fleisher names his winged lady character Alhambra. Now, he may be doing so purely for the evocative sound of the name; he may even have in mind the famous Spanish stronghold built circa the 9th Century which remains a notable tourist attraction still worthy of the Moorish poets’ description of it as “a pearl set in emeralds” (citation needed); however, and alas, Alhambra also has a namesake in Bradford, West Yorkshire, which is a theatre built in 1913 which remains a notable attraction during the Christmas season for anyone wishing to subject their children to the sight of Christopher Biggins dressed as a woman and talking about the size of his pumpkins. Additionally and endearingly a lot of these stories contain a panel which seems to be an overly literal visual representation of a colourful but slightly unsuccessful imaginary sexual euphemism; see Conan strangle an eagle!; see Conan stab the Demon’s heart!; see Conan sup from the lady’s cup!

By Buscema, Nebres, Fleisher et al

Of particular interest in this volume is the fact that John Buscema is allowed a few extra links in his artistic chains so he can stumble out of his inky illustrator’s cave and trespass for a few steps on the sun warmed ground usually earmarked for those weavers of dreams, the writers. What I’m saying is he gets to chuck some ideas and plots at Fleisher for a quick polish and a very nice how do you do to boot. Pleasingly the quality of the stories takes a swift upswing with Buscema trying to open things out of the established formula a bit with a lighter tone and a particular eagerness to get some expanded characterisation going in the vicinity of Conan himself. At times the barbaric One appears downright avuncular. This is dangerous ground Buscema is treading, however, as I personally believe that the occasions when Conan experiences emotions should be kept to a minimum; when he does feel something more than hunger, anger, lust or disgust at men who perfume themselves and live by words rather than actions (PAH!) he should always have a sort of slightly surprised air like a lion seeing a hot dog stand for the first time. But that’s just me, basically John Buscema does okay with the pen as well as the brush. Who knew?

By Kwapisz, Fleisher et al

Gary Kwapisz provides the art for an issue and also a couple of covers, all of which are nicely done with promise aplenty; but I won’t lie I don’t really know who he is. I was just going to make a crack about how his name sounds like he probably left comics and went off to play chess in a tin foil hat but I realised that would be rude and dismissive which isn’t like me at all(!), so I Googled him instead and found out that he’s still active in comics; he recently illustrated a Chuck Dixon series about the American Civil War (as opposed to the English Civil War which I imagine Chuck Dixon finds somewhat less interesting). So, yeah, Kwapisz’s stuff here is nice, being sinewy as opposed to Buscema’s brawn. But this is Conan and so art wise this is John Buscema’s show. Or, more correctly Ernie (Chua) Chan’s show. For even a great noble beast of an artistic Shire horse like John Buscema must have been tiring by this stage and Chan’s inking works hardest of all the inkers present to bolster Buscema . Certainly as we join John Buscema here, several years into bearing most of the weight of both the colour Conan and the B&W Savage Sword of… magazine, his art is typified by body language, staging and character design worn into familiar patterns by the repetition inherent in his colossal workload and the insanity inviting narrowness of the subject matter. Were the “he” in question not John Buscema this would likely be a critical hit, but as it is even the most cursory of his pages retains a well-honed gift for flow and all the essential cues other hands would require to beef it up to presentation standard. Basically, on these pages John Buscema’s art is saved from the gauzy weightlessness of a harem dancer’s veil by the efforts of both the inking (mostly by Chan (Chan’s the man!) but also Leialoha, Camp and Nebres) and, surprisingly, the colouring by various hands. Now (spoiler!) I’m not usually a fan of modern comic colouring technology applied to old timey comics but here I reckon it works. Earlier Dark Horse Conan volumes disastrously swamped Barry Windsor Smith’s delicately evolving lines under all the technological bells and whistles available; a no doubt well-intentioned but ultimately ill-judged attempt at updating the art which ended up resembling only aesthetic philistinism (he said sputtering wildly). Here, however, the colours lend vigour and spark to art which, unlike Windsor-Smith’s, is open enough to accommodate all the technology Dark Horse can chuck at it.

By Buscema, Chan, Fleisher et al

It can’t come as much of a surprise given its title that THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN VOLUME 20 showcases a series past its prime. But nobody herein disgraces themselves and every story between its covers is entertaining if not entirely sensible. It’s pulp fluff that was meant to entertain for the moment never giving a fig for posterity yet here it is in 2014 and I had a good time so I say THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN VOLUME 20 is OKAY!

And remember, what is best in life? COMICS!!!!

“What Happened To Shame?” TELEVISION! Sometimes I Just Veg Out In front Of The Tube!

So I was going to write about some comics but I just wasn’t feeling it. Being a big Elvis fan I am all too aware that you should never force it, so I wrote about some television instead. I hear people like television.

Anyway, this… TURKS & CAICOS Written & Directed by David Hare Starring: Christopher (“The ICE! is gownna BRICK!”) Walken, Bill Nighy, Winona Ryder, Hansel Piper, Dylan Baker, James Naughton, Zach Grenier, Julie Hewlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves, Sally Greenwood, Ewen Bremner, Malik Yoba, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Meredith Eaton and special sexy guest appearance by Ralph Fiennes (BBC2, 2014)

I don’t know if you’ve seen Turks and Caicos because I don’t know who you are or where you live. But if you were watching BBC2 at 21:00 hours on Thursday 20th March 2014 you were probably watching this programme. Turks and Caicos is a prestige high production value TV series clearly intended to be attractive to overseas purchasers. It’s from the BBC which as a pedigree still carries some classy clout so it is not just a posh thriller but the second in a trilogy of political dramas. It’s by David (Plenty, Damage, The Hours) Hare who is a highly regarded screenwriter, but I watched it because Christopher (The Dead Zone, Seven Psycopaths) Walken was in it. I am downright incorrigibly plebeian, ain’t I just? Bill (Still Crazy, Shaun of the Dead) Nighy’s also in it doing that weird acting thing he does that makes you suspect he hasn’t fully recovered from a long illness or something. Bill Nighy’s okay but he isn’t The Walken. The Walken plays a CIA (or is he? Yes. Yes he is.) Agent who blends into the sedate and monied surroundings of the titular island setting about as unobtrusively as a man on fire at a children’s party. He’s great, obviously. The Walken’s acting has now evolved to the point where it is all concentrated in his head and his body has become surplus to his thespian requirements. He maybe moved one hand and walked all of two yards throughout but still conveyed so much menacing energy I considered contacting the local constabulary.

Anyway, I didn’t watch the first in this trilogy of political dramas (Page Eight (2011)) because it didn’t have The Walken in it, but it’s easy enough to pick up the gist of this stuff. What we have here is at root a revenge fantasy for elderly liberals. It’s an Oxbridge One Tough Bastard, basically. So, instead of a man with bad hair and the acting chops of a foot solving all his problems by shooting them in the face here Bill Nighy uses manners, decency, decorum and a belief in Trust to, over three episodes (there’s a concluding one later), bring down a Prime Minister. A Prime Minister who is in no way, shape or form to be taken as a fictional version of Tony Blair; wherever you got that idea from you should put it back sharpish. So it’s complete wish fulfilment of course; a nice fantasy, but we all know that if some decent old dude started kicking up a fuss about the dirt under the government’s fingernails it would all end tragically very quickly indeed, not that that’s ever happened. In a casting masterstroke Not-Tony Blair is played by Ralph (In Bruges, The Grand Budapest Hotel) Fiennes who is so rewarding a screen presence I don’t mind his real-life inability to pronounce his own name correctly. The Fiennes looms magnificently in the background like a sexy but sour cloud of condensed lies and sleazy self-interest for a whole thirty seconds, but he works each one of those seconds like it’s a school leaver on a Zero Hours contract.

So, you know, it could just basically have been ninety or so minutes of The Walken shelling peas with The Fiennes ambling past in the background and I’d have been fine. Even better though, as I said, Turks and Caicos was also a liberal humanist version of all those violent movies I used to watch from the video shop but now with manners instead of magnums and instead of a Colombian drug dealer as the End of Level Boss it’s The Prime Minister of Great Britain. There’s a veneer of complexity with a follow-the-dirty-money-plot generously larded with shout outs for “The War On Terror”, the recession and all that business those pesky liberals get all worked up about over a cheeky little red in their converted barns. It’s intelligently done stuff although the juxtaposition between the humble decency of the poor and the sociopathy of the rich errs on the simplistic, but this being a polemic in dramatic drag that’s fair enough. It’s all sold as right smart stuff and presented with a high brow disdain for the vulgarity of action theatrics but it’s still genre thrills. For all its deadpan airs and graces it’s all quite silly and everything’s resolved terribly , terribly conveniently; largely through bad people just deciding to suddenly start telling the truth because Bill Nighy is a nice man who is kind to children and people who aren’t as edjumacated as what he is. Compassion is contagious, on Television at least. And why not; even Guardian readers need to believe everything's okay every now and again. Much like the second outing in the children’s entertainment trilogy Star Wars this episode ends on a low note, with Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham Carter going on the run and living from day to day and from hand to mouth. The trailer for the concluding episode (Salting the Battlefield; Thursday 27th March 2014) shows our dispossessed pair somewhere like Scotland drinking lattes. I guess for Helena Bonham Carter that is actually probably akin to living like a hunted animal. Only a dizzy don would mistake Turks and Caicos for high art or anything but it is intelligently written, its heart is in the right place and the acting by all (by both known and unknown) is a pleasure in and of itself. As TV goes it was GOOD! Turns out we elderly liberals like a good revenge fantasy as much as the next person; go for his lying eyes Bill Nighy!

This post has been restored following its deletion by persons unnamed and so may not reflect your memory of it exactly.

"Nah, Son. This Is On ALL of Us." COMICS! Sometimes If This Superhero Thing Doesn’t Work Out They Could Always Moonlight As A White Goods Delivery Firm!

Due to popular demand what follows is about a new(ish) series and it’s also mercifully brief! Who says we here at The Savage Critics don’t listen? Well, they’re right. But we thought you’d find the illusion comforting.

Anyway, this…

MIGHTY AVENGERS #6-7 Artist - Valerio Schiti Writer - Al Ewing Colourist - Frank D'Armata Letterer - VC's Cory Petit Covers - Greg Land, Jay Leisten & Frank D'Armata Marvel Comics, $3.99 each (2014)

Luke Cage created by George Tuska, John Romita Snr & Archie Goodwin Spectrum (Monica Rambeau) created by John Romita Jnr & Roger Stern Spider Man (Doctor Octopus) created by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man) created by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee Ronin (who isn’t Blade) created by Joe Quesada & Brian Michael Bendis Blade (who isn’t Ronin) created by Gene Colan & Marv Wolfman Blue Marvel created by Kevin Grevioux Power Man (Victor Alvarez) created by Mahmud Asrar & Fred Van Lente White Tiger (Ava Ayala) created by Tom Raney & Christos Gage Falcon created by Gene Colan & Stan Lee She-Hulk created by John Buscema & Stan Lee Iron Fist created by Gil "The Thrill" Kane & Roy Thomas (C) Marvel Characters, Inc.

I’ve been secretly reading Mighty Avengers since the start, so it’s probably time to upset everybody by going on about it. I’ve chosen this particular point to reveal I am reading it because these are the first issues where the series seems to have been drawn by a human being, rather than a bored robot. The art here isn’t great but at least it has a pulse. Previous issues were as visually engaging as the act of watching a toothpaste advert starring Halle Berry reflected in a stainless steel worktop. Valerio Schiti does a good job here; there’s nothing spectacular to speak of but it all gets done and that’s not unappreciated. He does a pleasant William H Macy anyway, and the whole affair sure looked kinda Cassady or McNiven-y. People like that, I hear. I wasn’t squealing and clapping my hands at any of it, but, again, I never felt like it was a product of The Forbin Project at any point. So, this is an Avengers comic but which Avengers comic is Mighty Avengers?

Mighty Avengers is the one with a bunch of non-Caucasian characters, but not Blade; Blade isn’t in it. There’s Ronin who acts like Blade would if he was in the Ronin suit, but it couldn’t possibly be Blade. Given past performance Ronin will turn out to be Puck’s Mom, despite so far having been clearly drawn as a six foot and then some man. It won’t be Blade though. (It is though; it’s totally Blade.) You all probably remember Ronin from Brian Bendis’ depressingly popular run on some staggeringly, yet characteristically, inept Avengers comics. I mean, how does that whole Ronin thing work then? Do all the Marvel heroes have a key to a locker in Grand Central station where the Ronin costume is stored, and if they feel a bit of mystery coming on they run down and slip it on?  Do they have to have it cleaned before they return it? It looks hot in that thing so sweaty pits might occur. Also maybe in all the excitement of, say, dodging The Rhino, or, more likely this, sitting in a boardroom listening to someone jabber like a wet brain for nine panels, a little trickle of wee-wee might slip out. And some people can skimp on the wiping; I’m mentioning no names, Adam Warlock. So on balance, yeah, they probably do have to have it dry-cleaned afterwards. Does it have a voice changer in it like those Iron Man masks in Toys R Us? Do you like all this street level stuff I’m doing? Yeah, street level; it’s at the level of the street, dawg. Like crisp wrappers, dog ends and dog muck. Basically, street Level is a Bendis-ism for dull. This comic is full of Bendis-isms.But don’t run screaming in the opposite direction just yet because Al Ewing, in an act of sadistically calculated one up-manship, makes them all work. For the first time ever. Which Avengers comic is Mighty Avengers? Mighty Avengers is the functioning version of the Avengers comic Brian Bendis squandered the better part of a decade trying to make work.

Luckily Al Ewing, not unlike my cat, can write to a somewhat higher standard and so we can now actually see the shape of Bendis’ dreary vision made presentable. Basically it’s TV. Surprise! Whoa, old hoss; it’s not The Wire or even That Basically Decent And Stylishly Shot James Ellroy Rip Off Show With Two Stellar Performances Which Folks Are Inexplicably Touching Themselves Over. It’s more the kind of comedy you catch a bit of when you are just that bit more worn down than usual, and so are later than normal leaving for work. You know; the kind of TV that was on in the evenings but is now on in the mornings because the evening stuff is better now. Jim Belushi’s probably in it. Ray Romano definitely is. This is superhero comics as sit-com cum soap opera stuff.Which is fine, but that’s where most of the emphasis is and this comic, ostensibly, is about people who can throw cars around like bean bags. Anyone who came for the fights’n’tights may feel a little short changed.

But just a little because it is there; it is all there. Yes, it is all very much and quite definitely there; the soap-opera, the sit-com and, yes, the tights’n’fights. It’s all there. And it’s all done well; I’m not saying it isn’t. I think Astro City hits the mix whole lot better but that’s a high target to aim at, and, fair do’s, Ewing does get close. But, really, I don’t really know who needs all this faux everyday life stuff. Wouldn’t it have been of more use back when children read comics? Prepare ‘em for the future (Read Spider-Man! This Issue: Spider-Man’s Bin Loses Its Lid And The Council Refuse To Replace It! Also, Electro! Read Spider-Man! See How Grown-ups Really Live! Don’t Dream! Don’t Ever Dream!) Now though, apparently, adults read this stuff.  Well, Buster, I’m an adult (physically anyway) and, as well done as it may be, my pulse doesn’t pound when I watch the Blue Marvel carry a fridge down some stairs. The only adults I know who would need to escape into a humdrum fantasy world of normality are convicted felons. Oh! I get it! Well played, Marvel! You finally found an audience more captive than the Direct Market! Hey, convicts, comics!

Look, Mighty Avengers is fine and Al Ewing writes it well. He probably writes it a lot better than I’m giving him credit for as he’s had to set up and develop his team despite the vulgar intrusions of at least two tie-ins. I mean, I don’t think Al Ewing’s in any danger of spraining any writing muscles here but Mighty Avengers is eventful, smooth and entertaining. Mighty Avengers is a GOOD! comic. If you’re fine with the Cosby-fication of Luke Cage you’ll like Mighty Avengers.

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I hear the comments are broken. Unless I hear otherwise I’ll just assume I am bloody fantastic and you all totally agreed with me about everything. (Yeah, especially you.) It’s okay, no problem!

I feel like having a bit of a break. Even if you don’t read this stuff I still had to write it. And I’ve written too much lately. I'd just like to read something for fun with no pressure to perform for a bit. So, see you after next week’s Podcast. You know, that thing where Graeme and Jeff talk about - COMICS!!!

(AS LONG AS JEFF LESTER PRESSES RECORD!!!)

“Muh Version of Whut Happened May Not Be Spicy Enough Fer Yore Little Boy’s Tastes…” COMICS! Sometimes Even A Surly Jackass Weeps For The World!

Man, I just about read the ink right offa these pages when I was just a young ‘un. And I just read ‘em agin right now. If you’re of a mind to, sit back and whittle awhile and I’ll flap my yapper concernin’ ‘em. Anyway, this…

What follows is a gentle amble through the contents of a comic from 1981. That’s all. It should not be taken as the latest shaky salvo in an attempt to prove old comics are better than new comics. Because they aren’t. Or rather; sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. A good comic is a good comic no matter when it was made. It’s what makes it a good comic that’s of interest. And that’s of interest because it’s never constant.  So, you know, don’t take this as a personal attack on modern comics from an old man having trouble adjusting to the fast moving world of today (Indoor plumbing! Ladies in trousers! Talking apes!) Oh, you can if you want. Life’s too short to be writing provisos this long. So, I read an old comic and this is what happened inside my head as I did so.

JONAH HEX #55 Art by Tony DeZuniga Written by Michael Fleisher Coloured by Bob Le Rose Lettered by Shelley Leferman DC Comics, $0.61 (1981) Jonah Hex created by Tony DeZuniga & John Albano

Cover by Tony DeZuniga

I’m a traditional guy, so let’s start at the beginning; let’s start with the cover. It’s worth doing because this issue of Jonah Hex is graced by one of my all-time favourite covers. I just totally groove on the daring use of perky yellow to frame a typically DeZuniga-n scene of dust, desperation and violence. The huddled group being picked off by circling riders is a scene immediately recognisable to anyone familiar with the tale of General George Custer. This being a not unlikely freight of knowledge for the audience of a comic about a violent cowboy. Whether such familiarity was formed by hagiography or revisionism (e.g They Died With Their Boots On (1941) vs. Little Big Man (1970)) the clear inference in the image is that there ain’t no one getting out of here alive. Even allowing for you being a real smart alec and knowing Jonah’s likely to be okay because, well, this wasn’t the last issue of Jonah Hex, there still remains the question of how. I saw that cover and I wanted to know what was going on behind it. That’s some powerful cover medicine right there.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman In a move which would give modern creators conniptions this comic just jumps right on in, picking up as it does immediately from the last issue’s cliff hanger. I think it’s called in media res but I could be wrong; never was one for book learning. True, this page basically reiterates the end of the previous issue which is Bad now, but was Good then because back in days of yore you could never gauren-damn-tee that the previous issue had made it across the ocean, and the idea that single issues of Jonah Hex would be collected between two covers was still a pretty plumb loco proposition. We join the action as, apparently, Jonah Hex and a pretty senorita called Carmelita have just escaped from El Papagaya only to confront the guns of a bunch of grey coats hot for Jonah’s hide. We’re only a page in and, in a shock move, Carmelita The Senorita turns out to have been working for the Fort Charlotte Brigade (FCB). These being the grey coats in question, who are a bunch of ornery owl hoots who want Jonah to pay for his betrayal of his own troops at Fort Charlotte. Jonah is innocent of course; well, Jonah is innocent of that particular charge at least. So, Carmelita The Senorita throws Jonah to the FCB and Micah, the leader, throws her some gold. Man, this comic is moving like a freight train. Say what you like about Michael Fleisher (just run it past a lawyer first) but the dude’s Jonah Hex books have got some momentum.

People mill about for a bit and introductions are made; motives established. Your basics; your meat and potatoes. You know, solid stuff; stuff I’d like to see more of. I like that DeZuniga’s drawn one of the FCB swigging from a canteen. That’s a nice touch; people aren’t just standing about lollygagging. Hey, I wonder what’s in that canteen, maybe it pays off later? Yeah, Tony DeZuniga (1932 – 2012) drew this. I should talk about the art. Everybody on the internet has been told to talk about the art; to tell you how it makes them feel. Tony DeZuniga’s art makes me feel like a leopard in heat; it makes me feel like a motherless child; it makes me feel like a shopping trolley that won the lottery. Tony DeZuniga’s art makes me feel like I just saw some heavily photo referenced pictures the artist made cohere into a satisfactory whole via lashings of gritty spackle and high contrast lighting. And that, muchachos, that’s a good feeling because DeZuniga was a good artist even if his realism is often slightly undermined by stiff staging. Dusty is the word when it comes to DeZuniga; I unconsciously wipe my hands on my shirtfront after reading a DeZuniga book. I also do that after eating crisps and then blithely walk around with crisp crumbs down my front like a simpleton. Drives milady nuts, that does.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

So, yeah, see how happy Carmelita is! See how she laughs! I wonder what brought her to this pass. What kind of life she must have had to make her betray trust for gold. What an interesting female character, I look forward to learning more about her in the pages ahe..oh, she just got shot off her horse. It appears Carmelita will not be joining us for the rest of the issue. I wasn’t expecting that; a brutal move but certainly an arresting one. Now here’s a thing, many people die in this issue and DeZuniga, more often than not, got to draw a big jammy splash of gore erupting out of the appropriate area. In 2014 and in comparison to, say, the idiotically violent Damian: Son of Batman these are just papercuts, but in 1981 and compared with, well, anything else in a kid’s reach this is like Sam Peckinpah level shit. This is one violent-ass comic, you just wait. I don’t know how they got away with this; I’m glad they did. This kid just ate it up, and I turned out alright. Cough.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

Like many of the supporting cast suspense is short lived in Jonah Hex and it is immediately revealed that El Papagaya shot Carmelita The Senorita. He also calls her a “puta” which, children were unhelpfully informed via a footnote, meant “tramp”. In 1981 in England a tramp was usually a male of advanced years who had chosen a life of vagrancy and begging. This is not the same as a homeless person who can be any age and has had the choice made for them and whose presence is a living indictment of any society in which they exist. Boom! Boom! Try the organic chicken sourced from Fair Trade vendors! Tramp also means "whore", but don't tell the Kids! This issue of Jonah Hex was surprisingly educational; by reading it you would also learn the following terms: pistolas (pistols) and compadres (companions). Enough to get anyone through a weekend break south of the border!

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman Meanwhile, back at the rocky outcrop we find El Papagaya. Now, El Papagaya is a rare thing in Jonah Hex; a recurring villain. This rarity being down to Jonah’s tendency to deal quite decisively with anyone posing a threat to him. He’s prone to go blood simple at the drop of a hat, that Jonah Hex. But El Papagaya is a wily one and always lives to taunt another day. Because that’s the big thing about El Papagaya; his taunting. Loquacious only begins to describe him. He’s called El Papagaya which means parrot because he has one but also, he never shuts the hell up. Well, I think that’s funny. I think El Papagaya is a funny guy he’s so blatantly disingenuous but at the same time totally transparent. He’s probably modelled on the kind of big hatted stereotypes that gave Humphrey Bogart a bad time in those old movies. But El Papagaya has a parrot and is dressed as flamboyantly as an ice skater so he’s better.

It’s a tight bind Jonah and his crew are in and no mistake. To escape Jonah sets light to the dry grass so that the smoke will cover their exit. I know this because it is mentioned several times in the course of two pages. Now, unless Michael Fleisher thought his audience were prone to sudden attacks of amnesia, this isn’t particularly smooth writing. I don’t really know why it’s mentioned so much but I think comic writers used to be a bit insecure and made sure there were lots of words on those pages for a couple of reasons. One is, I guess, they didn’t know who’d be drawing it or if they did they had no guarantee how it was going to turn out. They couldn’t just fire off a chummy E-Mail and get a scan back thirty seconds later. Pure supposition this; also, they were very, very clear about what was going on to avoid any possible confusion. This means this comic is overwritten to Hell and back but it also means I’m not going “Wait, What?” at any point. Anyway, El Papagaya obligingly lets the smoke build to a sufficient density to permit our band to escape.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

Now here’s some sexy shit; two whole pages of an old man and his slave talking in a graveyard. It’s not even very good talking but there is plenty of it. Now, the poor quality and large quantity are quite in line with current trends but, unfortunately for him, Fleisher’s made the schoolboy error of putting information in his dialogue. This makes it exposition (which today is Bad) instead of aimless drivel which is stellar character work (which today is Good). Exposition isn’t actually bad in and of itself but there is such a thing as badly executed exposition. Which this is. There’s so much of it in fact that Turnbull’s face is obscured throughout by his exposition bloated word balloons. That’s on purpose that is; so we can’t see him but I don’t really know why that is.

Why we can’t see his face that is. I mean we’re unlikely to recognise him. It’s not like eventually he’s revealed to be Harry Osborne’s dad or anything. He’s just some mad old, bald, fat white guy. Oh my God, it’s me! It was me all along! No wonder they hid his face. It all makes sense now! I’m joking; I’m not fat. Anyway, there’s all this exposition about how Jonah Hex caused Turnbull’s son to be killed and how, By God, Turnbull will see Jonah Hex in his grave for it and all that kind of spittly lipped, stick waving thing. To be fair, this stuff does do a few things, although it does none of them subtly. It corroborates the mission of the men who have captured Jonah Hex so we know they aren’t just delusional lunatics; allows Fleisher to (and it is quite smart this) put the truer spin in the mouth of Solomon so that Turnbull can bat it away out of hand showing both a) Turnbull just wants someone to pay; the truth is moot and b) Solomon’s superficial equality is purely that; superficial. Yeah, it’s clumsy as a sprinter with wooden legs and real feet but it still gets quite a lot of stuff done. It’s convenient to forget that this is the fundamental purpose of a genre comic; getting stuff done. (I know I repeat that later; that’s for reinforcement not because I didn’t re-read this for glaring shittiness. Oops! Missed a bit!) Also, after all the words the sudden silent panel where Turnbull kneels at his son’s grave actually has some impact. Surprisingly so; bonus points for that one.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

Back at the camp Jonah and the FCB take a break from TCB and indulge in some more expositionary chit chat. Jonah has noticed that one of their number is a little short in the tooth to have been at Fort Charlotte but, alas, his Dad wasn’t. Jonah tries to explain what (whut) happened but the kid is having none of it and plumb hawks one up right in Hex’s bacony face. Even though there are a lot of words here DeZuniga does a good job keeping things interesting by dropping detail out entirely at some points so the central image is bracketed by blankness and varying the POV as things progress. When the script slackens the art keeps things taut; it’s a joint effort. Words and pictures, you know how that goes. This scene’s pretty important (hey, maybe it pays off later?) but its immediate significance is in the fact that in its first panel the dude with the water flask is going “hic!” Maybe he drank his water too fast and got an upset tummy? Do you think that’s going to pay off soon? Do you think this piece is ever going to end? (Maybe it’ll be like the Tristram Shandy of nostalgic old man comics writing? maybe my heart will give out first?) Remember when drunk people went “hic”? They used to do it in movies too. In real life though they just get angry and violent. Ah, good times. Hic!

We’re on page 8 (PAGE EIGHT!) now, in case anyone’s keeping score and things start moving like a heated tomahawk through someone’s face from hereonin. So far the comics been overwritten (like this piece; like that was on purpose!) and expositing like expositing is a real thing, but Fleisher’s been setting it all up. All the pieces are now in place; El Papagaya’s in pursuit, Hex has connected with the kid, there’s a boozer loose and it’s all about to pay off over the next few pages. And you best believe it’s going to pay off in death and sorrow. Hey, Kids! Comics!

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

Page eight is where the ordure becomes authentic. Despite Hex’s protestations the boozer (Shenandoah!) wobbles off and picks up a feather from the ground. Why, what harm coul…OMG! A feather! Like a parrot has! It’s El Papa..the ground immediately appears to eat Shenandoah and there is a child scarring two panel sequence of him falling onto some stakes (GHAAAAAAAAAA!). You don’t see anything really. Just the falling body suspended above the stakes below and then an inset of his screaming face, which has been charmingly hued a deep red. That shit sure shook me up when I was a kid. It was AWESOME! GHAAAAAAAAAAA! Hell, yeah! I wouldn’t get this excited again until I saw Walter Hill’s magnificent beast of a movie Southern Comfort (1981; coincidence?). In all honesty I get mixed messages from Walter Hill films. Do you think Southern Comfort knows it is skewering machismo even while it seems to be paying homage to it? It doesn’t really matter because, Powers Boothe. Anyway, I have a weak spot for fiction involving people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one. Some folk are like Hmm, chocolate or Awww, cats but me, I’m all Aw yeah, people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one! And it’s all this comic’s fault. Mind you, it hasn’t escaped my notice that people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one is basically Life, so there you go. Anyway everyone knows how that people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one stuff goes and that’s how this comic goes for the remainder of its pages.

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

The point, he said realising he was late to take his kid to Cubs and he had paced this badly, is that this tale of Jonah Hex is 17 pages long but, boy howdy, it covers some distance. The actual comic book is a mite longer since there is also a one pager about dead sheriffs, a letter column and a Gary Cohn and Tom Yeates strip called Tejano. Consequently Fleisher and DeZuniga don’t have space to faff about, so they don’t. By the 8th page Fleisher and Dezuniga have worked like ditch diggers to get the reader up to speed with who everyone is, what they want and how they all relate to each other while also defining a deadly scenario to shape the events following. None of it is elegantly done but it all gets done. Round these parts that’s what genre comics are all about; getting’ it done. Fleisher and DeZuniga get it done quick and dirty and it all ends with an overwrought moment of emotion which is still not entirely unmoving despite its relative lack of sophistication. Jonah Hex #55 (“Blood Trail”!) mebbe weren’t quite as good as I remembered, but it still entertained like all get out and that makes GOOD! Did it deserve all those words? No, but like the man said, “Deserve’s got nothin' to do with it.”

Image by DeZuniga, Fleisher, Le Rose & Leferman

As the sun sets sadly on the West Jonah Hex#55 (“Blood Trail”!) couldn’t be more – COMICS!!!

ABHAY: These Aren't That Good But Here's Another Attempt at Capsule Reviews

Eh, don't feel like I did a great job on these, but here's an attempt at some capsule reviews for THE WHITE SUITS #1, DEADLY CLASS #1-2, more just chit-chat than a review of SATELLITE SAM #6 which I didn't care enough about to mention any of the actual details of (I think I really ate it on that one), FANTASTIC FOUR #1, and FOREVER EVIL: ARKHAM WAR #1 to 5.  There's better stuff on the internet, right now, these are just bleh, but if you're bored...

The White Suits #1 by Frank J. Barbiere & Toby Cypress, "story and art TM and copyright by Frank Barbiere":  I bought this to see Toby Cypress draw action-crime comics, and to the extent it's Toby Cypress drawing action-crime comics, I guess I got exactly what I wanted.  Cypress: dynamic anatomy, dynamic page layouts, a willingness to exaggerate anatomy but grounded in a very lavish sense of lighting; one of those guys who let you see the physical act of drawing in their pages, where the ink on the page serves not only the surface narrative but the usually much better sub-narrative, the timeless story of ink going onto the page.  We really should have a way of describing this style that's quick and efficient, the way the Belgians have the "Marcinelle School" or the "ligne claire" guys-- Cypress is hardly the only one chasing this muse.

Anyways, my kind of shit, the way he draws.  The comic is black and white with a red spot color-- ehhhh, execution on the spot color varies; when it's story motivated, or used to establish a setting, it's slick enough I guess. Though they stick to red more often than not which I just feel like has been done with crime comics, that they could maybe take more chances there-- especially because there's a couple pages where they mix in other colors that are entirely successful (a page of smeared green and yellow gunfire on top of the red, in particular, has a lot to offer).  Maybe it's better that's done judiciously though-- maybe that's not for me to say; "I'm gonna back-seat drive Photoshop!"  Sometimes, though, Cypress adds a low-opacity red smear on top of a drawing-- those parts seem less motivated by story or atmosphere; just sort of sit there on the page; miss more often than they hit; more than one panel of a low-opacity red blur on bad guy's teeth...? Watch out for their teeth, good guys-- those are some evil teeth.  

There's an especially slick panel of a strip club, the lamps all in red-- I especially liked that one.  It doesn't really "make sense"-- most strip clubs don't have that much lighting; at least, local ordinances for LA County had to put in a minimum amount of lighting, which suggests to me at least that authorities figured that for necessary because left to their own devices, strip clubs will want for lamps.  I don't know-- it's a fucking slick panel, anyways.

As for the story or writing or characters or themes, it's just another comic of things happening.  There's some guys, and then there's some other guys, and there are events involving all these guys (emphasis: guys).  Things happening isn't really a story, though-- it's just things happening.

Same questions as usual: What does anyone want?  What is at stake?  Does someone have a goal that they are working towards or some interesting, unique lifestyle?  Does that goal or their lifestyle reflect who they are?  Does that goal or their lifestyle say something about who WE are?  Is anything about the actual world being observed or relayed to the reader?  If not and it's an assembly of pre-existing genre formulas, is at least anything about those formulas being observed or relayed to the reader?  Is there anything-- fucking anything!-- that seems to be even a little bit personal about any of the material at issue?  Is there anything about it that says "this could have only come from this person-- this needed to be made because if this person didn't exist at this time, it wouldn't have ever been created at least in this configuration"?  W-H-Y S-H-O-U-L-D I C-A-R-E? How many times have I had to type out some variation of these same questions?

Story-wise, this comic is just a 100 Bullets rerun-- there's nothing in this comic that hasn't been written before.  It's white noise.  It's emotional static.  Sample dialogue:  "She's been watching me for over a month.  Hidden in plain sight... It doesn't matter.  If she really knew anything about me, she'd know that I'M BETTER.  Tonight I get some answers."  Jesus Christ, is there a button you can push on Final Draft that shits that out, or did someone have to light a candle and plagiarize a rejected Wolverine videogame screenplay word-for-word?  How much longer are any of us going to be alive?  How many more times do we have to read this same fake-macho speech over and over and over again?

"She's a badass.  She's cruel like a snake, but got the body of an angel, and the vagina of a devil, a devil named SHOTHAR THE SWEET-PUSSY BEARER.  But she's met her match because me, my dick gets hard, lady-- as hard as an erection!  She looks at me-- I want her to tell me what she sees.  She ain't seen the best of me yet.  Give me more time and I'll make her forget the rest.  I got more in me, and she can set it free.  I can catch the moon in my hand-- doesn't she know who I am?  REMEMBER MY NAME-- FAME!  I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER-- I'M GOING TO LEARN HOW TO FLY- HIGH.  I FEEL IT COMIN' TOGETHER!  PEOPLE WILL SEE ME AND CRY -- FAME!  I'M GOING TO MAKE IT TO HEAVEN.  LIGHT UP THE SKY LIKE A FLAME-- FAME!  I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER.  BABY, REMEMBER MY NAME remember remember remember FAME!"

It's not that the comic is bad-- it's that if you're reading enough comics where you're random-buying Dark Horse miniseries, your true enemy is apathy. Then again, first issues are tough-- maybe they'll work out their kinks, uh, whenever.  Saved this review at the end, with that last sentence-- now it's constructive and balanced!  Wee!

Deadly Class #1 and 2, by Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Lee Loughridge, Russ Wooton, an Sebastian Girner, copyright Rick Remender and Wes Craig on issue #1 but copyright Rick Remender on issue #2...?  Weird. Typo?:  This is a pretty stupid comic that I had to put down at least once because I was laughing at it and then just laughing at myself for still reading comics, but that being said, by the time I got to the end of the second one, I have to admit it's my kind of stupid.  When I call it stupid, I guess I'm saying that affectionately...?

Anyways, it's another high-concept Image book-- this one is set in 1987. The Matrix people go to the Harry Potter school, basically; the videogame Bully ensues...?  It's all drenched in "good lord, Claremont would blush" torrents of teen angst narration, though-- that's what got me.  By the time the main character is giving some 7th grade lecture about how Christians are too rude to fucking Mormons (?)-- "As if one religion is less  cultish and full of shit than the other"-- I put the book down to have myself that little laugh.  None of Remender's cutesy little ideas about race or anything make it in there, at least, so whew, but ufffff, get a blog.  Some of that's not his fault though-- some of that's just bad timing with me:  the first issue starts with a load of "people aren't nice enough to homeless street kids" talk that's harder to take seriously after seeing it play out a little more tragically in real life with John Campbell and whatever mental health issues she seems to be unfortunately grappling with (and best of luck to her). I imagine most folks didn't have that same issue, especially as the first issue of this came out well before that happened...

Mostly, it all reads very X-Men, but with crime mythologies instead of mutantcy.  Crime mythologies?  I'm pretty much a sucker for crime mythologies; can't remember a time when those weren't a pretty sweet thing to throw into a story. There's a decent quantity of dumb here (sample narration: "I hate the winter.  Jacket soaked by icy mist"...?) and plenty of ways this can go wrong, but the bedrock stuff-- rival factions of teens at war with one another, violence, swords, gangsters, spies, rich kids vs. poor kids... This stuff all baked into me pretty deep when I was all cookie-dough.  Regardless of anything I might say about this comic right this second,  I can guarantee that Me Age: 13 would have been all about this nonsense. I never watched a man have his throat slit by Colombian drug lords or anything (which the letter page suggests was what it took to write this comic...), but I saw Akira too before I could drive, so I'm never going to be too put off by a comic where disaffected teenagers have a motorbike battle... (It's a very strange letter page for a Harry Potter vs. The Matrix comic, but).

(Re: what I was saying before with White Suits and character motivations, the first issue, the main character's goal is survival.  Once that's mitigated by the end of issue 1, the comic almost immediately provides a new goal for the character-- to kill Ronald Reagan (like I said, stupid but in a way that invites a certain affection).  So: note that the main character is never without a goal and it's the better for it-- it doesn't have to be a noble  or worthwhile goal, even.  This paragraph shouldn't even have been needed to be written out, but so many fucking comics don't do this...).

Wes Craig's interesting-- don't think I've ever read a Wes Craig comic before...?  It's nice-- cute stuff.  He leaves his backgrounds fairly minimal to accommodate these very solid blocks of colors from Loughridge; plus, no panel borders.  The result is very direct, adds a certain subliminal emphasis to a lot of the storytelling, maybe.  (There's a fight scene in a Seijun Suzuki movie that I want to mention but the titles of all those movies blur together for me-- DAY OF THE BRANDING?  I don't know-- the one with the go go dancers...?).  Craig's working on what looks like 5 or 6 tiers a page (which is, at least comparatively speaking, a lot-- a mainstream comic you'll usually see 3, maybe 4).  He packs a good quantity of detail within that limited space (the highpoint so far being a Day of the Dead celebration in issue one, where he makes room for a dancing girl within the rest of the storytelling).  More tiers means more speed, more cutting-- especially because he's not one of those "Widescreen" jackasses, more time watching the characters move (the cost being time dwelling on any moment or letting any moment breathe too long).  I like that choice...

Simple version of what I'm saying: for me and my tastes, I like that they're not skimping on the comics in this comic, basically.

The only problematic part of all that is that they had to go smaller than usual on the lettering.  I keep comics by my bed usually for when I have trouble sleeping-- trying to read this tiny lettering when I'm trying to fall asleep... That part was a stone-cold bummer.

Anyways, it's a sometimes corny action comic for teens made out of some pretty good building blocks so far.  Might make a good compare-contrast with Naruto or something like that someday, if you're looking to write compare-contrasts on the internet, I suppose.

Satellite Sam #6 by Matt Fraction, Howard Chaykin, Ken Bruzenak, Jen Dougherty, Jesus Aburtov, Drew Gill and Thomas K, copyright Milkfed Criminal Masterminds & Howard Chaykin, Inc. (I want to read a comic about the JR-Ewing-like backstabbing and high-stakes office politics at Howard Chaykin, Inc.):  Just feels pointless to talk about.  I feel like when this series wraps and it's all collected in one edition, there's a lot of vacuous "general interest" websites that sort of superficially write about comics that'll take it super-seriously for a couple paragraphs or a year-end list or some shit.  Pop Matters or the shambles of the AV Club, one of those kinds of sites-- congratulations to them.  So, what's the point...?

Usually, when the Oscars roll around, and thoughts turn to comics, in the past at least, I've gotten a little miffed about how comics doesn't have an equivalent to the "Oscar film".  No one sells comics by announcing "Hey kids-- here's a project that's going to WIN ALL THE EISNERS next year" because no one gives a fuck about the Eisner Awards.  There's no "prestige projects". (DC used to call some of their Batman comics, the ones where Batman would be in an alternative universe and the Joker would be Margaret Sanger or whatever, they would call those "prestige" comics, but even those are long gone). All these hyped up Image comics?  Just different varieties of the same old bullshit, for the most part.  Deadly Class is, what, this year's New Mutants...?  Who gives a fuck about the New Mutants?  (Well, I did when I was 13 so here I am with "Deadly Class is Tops in My Book"...).

Satellite Sam, though?  That comic feels like an Oscar film-- but in the bad way, the middlebrow way, the way we make fun of.  This is one mentally challenged character away from winning all kinds of sweet white-person awards.

On the other hand, who else has used the creative freedom at Image to do anything besides C-grade pulp television shows?  It's interesting that a black and white period piece now out-sells Spawn or Invincible or whatever. It'd be more interesting if this were a better comic, and not Aaron Sorkin slash-fiction.  But look, if this book didn't exist, I would be here complaining with Image about how "all the creative freedom that the previous generation fought for, the whole fight to be taken seriously as an adult medium and all we got for it is this stupid Lazarus comic".  So this comic kept me from complaining...  That's something, right?  That's got to get it SOME credit.

So I don't know.  I just wish I could tell the guys with the moustache apart.  I can't tell them apart.  This isn't a joke.  I'm 100% serious-- I can not tell at least three (three?  four? two?) characters apart.  Who is the Man with the Moustache, you guys?  Is that the mystery Satellite Sam is trying to solve, too?

Fantastic Four #1 by James Robinson, Leonard Kirk, Karl Kesel & Jesus Aburtov (copyright Marvel Characters, Inc., manufactured between 1/31/2014 and 2/11/2014):  The Fantastic Four is almost never a good comic, but I was curious to see Robinson on it.  For a moment, I had a pang of nostalgia for early Starman, and I thought, if (a) Robinson showed up with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove after getting fucked around by DC, and (b) that Robinson showed up, the Robinson from the early days when he was trying to prove something, had that angry young man energy, then heck, there wouldn't be a better book for him at Marvel than the Fantastic Four.

The math works on paper, at least.  It's a book with a tremendous past, the Lee-Kirby run, that's cast a shadow on everything that's come after (a shadow the book's never gotten out of-- though... there's things to be said about Walt Simsonson, and Simonson's singular ability to work on Kirby material while still being his own guy, having his own voice).  For people who've read that Lee-Kirby run-- that's a run that flourishes in the memory of it, which is maybe true of all the great mainstream comic runs. And for people who haven't, it's still sort of casts a shadow, I think, because I think you can't help but be aware that there was this run at some point where it was the biggest book at Marvel, the World's Greatest Comic whatsit.  Plus, it was very much a book of its time and place-- the FF works in the mid-to-late 60's, the way Superman works in the 40's and 50's, in a way those franchises don't really hum the same way out of those time periods.

 I thought Robinson would be interesting to watch handle all the challenges that creates since he sort of walked into the same situation on Starman, with the Golden Age DC characters who had a similar baggage to them, a suffocating air of respectability.  I think the early issues of Starman, at least, handled that well not only by finding an emotional-in to things, an angle-- other writers can do that-- but also a level of specificity to the details, all the stuff about the collectibles in that book, the very specific references to music, culture, fashion that were made.  Which I think the FF can accommodate... like, just thinking of those old drawings of the Baxter Building bisected-- "Here's the gym, here's the observation lounge," etc.  Lee-Kirby had that same understanding of the importance of the specific detail, too, in their own way.

It was a lot of unfair baggage to walk into this comic with, basically, so when I say it didn't live up to any of that, don't take that as anything besides ... I mean, of course it didn't.  It's too much to expect, I guess.

 (I should mention, when I tried to read it, I didn't get that far with the Hickman run because it was fucking awful-- or at least, I couldn't keep reading after the issue where a woman gets her face punched off (which you would think people would mention about a big critically-acclaimed run, like "oh by the way some robot woman gets her face punched off by a monster thing for no discernible reason in case you don't like looking at pointless violence against women made by relentlessly oblivious comic bros" but I missed that review, I guess).  But I understand that run was popular, and maybe that makes what I'm talking about above impossible or maybe that was popular because it became what I'm talking about above.  It just seems like a book that never really does gangbusters because it's ... it always looks like Old Person Nostalgia Show instead of a comic anyone really feels like they need to read to stay hep to the exciting developments of that Universe... Which is a shame, just from having heard Jeff & Graeme talk on Wait What about the Thing being sort of the earliest fan-favorite character and why-- it's ... it's too bad that's how that ended up being the hand that got dealt...  Anyways...)

I didn't see anything in the Robinson issue that seemed like it would change anyone's mind on anything, at least.  Fin Flang Froom or whatever shows up?  Then, Reed Richards makes out with his hot fakey-fake comic book wife...? Then, there's a cliffhanger I didn't understand.  The end.  The Fin Flang Floom bit all read like something that'd be going on in the deep background of some Astro City issue, and not even a good Astro City issue-- one about an apprentice jizz-mopper who is struggling to complete his tax forms on time.  Nobody wants to read that issue... Well, maybe if he fills out a Schedule C incorrectly-- that might be pretty fun; (I really like having Astro City back, you guys!)  Anyways, it didn't make an impression.

P.S.  Man, that new logo is shit-ugly. Is that just me?  Not into it.

FOREVER EVIL: ARKHAM WAR #1-5 by Peter J. Tomasi, Scot Eaton, Jaime Mendoza, Allen Martinez, Taylor Esposito, Fabok & Dalhouse, Andrew Dalhouse, Wil Quintana, Jason Wright, Darren Shan, Rachel Gluckstern, and Mike Marts (copyright DC Comics, published on paper "made with sustainably managed North American fiber"):

I got to thinking the other day about how what I picture in my head about DC fans has changed in the last ... nearly 10 years.

Before, and for a LONG time,   when I pictured a DC fan in my head, I would picture an irritated old grampa, angry that kids were on his lawn, yelling "Get off my lawn, you damn kids" out a window, while he tried to enjoy himself a delicious glass of lemonade and listen to the big band sounds coming from PBS and enjoy him some fine DC comics, with a sheaf of letterhead paper at his side in case he had to write an angry letter to the editor.  "How dare they suggest that Zatanna would kiss a boy she wasn't married to?  The Teen Titans aren't a music video for your hippity hop music-- this is supposed to be about morality.  Young people love morality.  My heart-- ackkkk dead."

But now, when I picture a DC fan in my head, I just picture a goon in his EARLY 20's, with spikey hair and a spray tan on his way to hang out on some kind of boardwalk next to a beach.  "YO, I JUST LOST MY JOB AT THE ORANGE JULIUS, SO I'M GONNA READ THIS ISSUE OF BATMAN-- HOPEFULLY, I GET TO SEE BATMAN LICK HIS TONGUE UP INTO CATWOMAN'S SWEET KAZOOHA-- THEN ME AND JONNY AND SILLY PETE, WE'RE GOING TO THE TITTY BAR-- YOU SHOULD JOIN US AND GET THOSE TITTIES IN YOUR FACE, SON.  WOOT WOOT!"

So I was drinking my cocoa and thinking on that, and figured it was contempt prior to investigation.  I hadn't really dipped into the New 52 much, all those comics where superheros changed their clothes to juggalo versions of their old costumes because Flash's mom was dead again ... or something...?  I wanted to have that life experience.  So, I went with Forever Evil: Arkham War because I'd remember seeing a review of it somewhere or another.  My understanding of the Forever Evil event is that the Earth 2 characters have all come to Earth...?  It's another Earth 2 story?  That's all I know.

This is a comic about Batman being gone from Gotham and all the bad guys fighting each other for control over Gotham,  which as premises go is pretty promising, you would think.  But there's no Joker and no Two-Face, and none of the villains really use their gimmicks ever, so in practice, it doesn't really work out.

Basically, it's all of Batman's Rogue's Gallery versus Bane, who the comic constantly mentions is from Santa Prisca (which Wikipedia describes as "a small island located in the northern Caribbean").  So if you want to read a Batman comic about white anxiety over illegal immigration, I guess there's this one...?  Scarecrow doesn't use his fear-ness on anybody; Riddler isn't in there so there's no riddles; Penguin talks about back-stabbing but never really back-stabs anyone or .. does or... that part's confusing, actually.  Since it's Bane, it's just a lot of muscle-guys wrasslin' one another, mostly.

Mostly, it's just a moment-to-moment "awww dude wouldn't it be awesome if" comic, which is sort of the expectation I had going in-- that's what DC does now, right?  That's what they replaced story with...?  How long can you keep that going?  Bane in a Batman costume; a scene of something called Talons (?) getting sliced in half by some kind of difficult-to-understand trap; Manbat armies killing people just off-camera so it stays PG-ish; I feel like they could replace every bit of dialogue in this comic with the lyrics to that "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" song and I wouldn't have noticed much of a difference.

The Old DC universe was a nice place where villains were a disruption; the modern DC seems like a terrible place where anything nice happening is a disruption... Having the Earth-2 villains take over in the comics seems besides the point, given the people who've taken over making these comics, their tastes.  Is that part of the subtext of this event?  Is that what the fission of this whole Forever Evil is supposed to be?  Is it a metaphor?

Putting Bane into a Batman costume lets them do Dark Knight Returns homage in issue 5:  beefy Bane-Batman jumps onto a horse, in a straight-up DKR lift.  But the comic just glides right by that homage-- it doesn't take a moment to underline it or revel in it or anything; it just happens in the background of a Talon (? no idea) saying "I was born Henry Ballard... and I serve Arkham Asylum."  It's just limp-dicked and anhedonic.

At one point, they show a map of the city, how the Rogues divided it up-- Zsasz controls a part of the city...?  I only know him from the videogames-- isn't the Zsasz character just a serial killer?  Why would a serial killer need to control part of a metropolitan area?  "I need to punish women with my design; also, I need to control municipal garbage services and zoning controls."  Zsasz is a very civic-minded serial killer, I guess.

Scot Eaton... There's at least one or two moments of garbled storytelling in every issue, but he doesn't have a lot of room to work in so it's hard to say how much of it is his fault... There's a nice page of Bane making his own Batman costume.  He lands that one, I suppose.  His opening splash pages are okay.  It's a lot of pages of all the Batman villains posing at each other (which, with only a few exceptions, is what mainstream comics call "fight scenes").  It's the kind of comic art where you can tell which original pages he thinks will sell well at a convention...?  I can't really imagine he's anybody's Favorite Dude-- his style is pretty anonymous, generic DC art (that always looks difficult and time-consuming to pull off, to be fair, all those lines).  But ... as an instance of "this is what mainstream comics look like," I guess he does his job.  Can't really lay anything at his feet-- seems like just a professional guy doing a gig.  I mean, it's the pinup school of storytelling-- there's none of the velocity of those Toby Cypress White Suits pages-- it's just pinup-pinup-pinup.  But that's what a dude reading this comic wants, right?

The fancier he gets with his storytelling panels, the more awkward things get.  In one panel, he tries to draw a downshot of Killer Croc, with the camera outside of a window, in the rain...?  It doesn't work out too great for him, that panel... He seems suited for this comic, at least-- it's a comic written full of pinup moments.  How he would do on a comic where he had to tell a story... Well, with DC being run like it is right now, I guess that's a purely academic question.  (Wikipedia says he's been drawing comics since the 90's, and his name doesn't really ring a bell with me, so...)

One of the ads in this comic is of Nightwing, tied up (by something-- the artist couldn't draw convincing rope, if that's supposed to be rope), drooling his own blood.  A few pages later is an ad of Green Lantern drowning in blood.  The page after that is an ad for Green Arrow:  THE KILL MACHINE. After that, all the DC Rogues inhale a gas that robs them of their personalities and makes them giant overmuscled drooling meatheads yelling the word KILL.  Is this a metaphor? This feels like a metaphor.

"I Wonder If Tom And Larry Would Be So Eager To Marry Me If My...Feet...Were...Gone!" COMICS! Sometimes They Got Moxie, You Betcha!

As an ancient ladies’ fragrance ad had it, “Men Can’t Help Acting On Impulse”; which is why we have prisons. And, slightly more pertinently, why I bought this book of ye olde newspaper continuities. Repeat offenders will recall that recently I looked at a Hermes Press collection of Frank Robbins’ Johnny Hazard newspaper strips. Hopefully such folk will fail to recall that I was somewhat out of my depth and basically just said "Frank Robbins draws real nice!" in a number of different ways without even a hint of insight. In the uncharacteristically optimistic belief that I could hardly do any worse I thought I’d look at yet more old newspaper strips. This time out they are both about and by a woman. This means there’s every chance I’ll not only fail to say anything of use but I’ll also inadvertently offend fifty percent of the world’s population. Sigh, and this is how I relax; it’s no wonder I have more hair on my toes than on my head.

Anyway, this…

BRENDA STARR,REPORTER The Collected Dailies and Sundays: 1940-46 By Dale Messick Hermes Press, $60.00 (2012 Brenda Starr created by Dale Messick Brenda Starr and Brenda Starr, Reporter (c) Tribune Media services, Inc.

One thing that becomes apparent very quickly when you decide to dip a toe in the newspaper continuities pool is the price of the bally things. This one goes for sixty of your Earth dollars. Now, that’s not what I paid thanks to Christmas gift vouchers and a good truffle about for a price within spitting distance of my personal definition of reasonable, but that’s still the RRP. The other thing is such books are pretty niche and people tend to buy them out of a strange kind of forensic curiosity rather than just for pure reading pleasure. What I’m getting at is it’s important to know what you are getting. I was remiss in this area with the Frank Robbins’ Johnny Hazard book which, at this late date, I will inform you contained just the strips but these were crisply reproduced. Which is fair enough; no frills but good stuff. This Brenda Starr book is a bit more of a mixed bag. So, in the interests of people who take their newspaper continuities seriously I will let you know what you are in for if you splash the cash in Brenda Starr’s direction. Some of the reproduction is a bit iffy in this volume so tread wisely.

Foreword by Starr Rohrman Introduction by Richard Pietryzk An Appreciation by Trina Robbins Chapter 1: Beginning Sunday strips from June 30, 1940 through to April 20, 1941. Presented in colour and half a strip to a page. The reproduction is excellent and the reading a pleasure. Chapter 2: The Curious Tale of Mary Elizabeth Beastly Sunday strips from September 10, 1944 through to January 14, 1945. Presented in crisp and clear B&W. With one exception these are taken directly from the original artwork. Chapter 3: The Man of Mystery Sunday and daily strips from October 22,1945 through to February 24,1946. The reproduction on the colour sundays remains good but the B&W dailies are a bit lacking. Process A brief and basic look at process but with some nice original art and colour guide stuff. Afterword by Laura Rohrman

And now I start flapping my jaw…

Dalia (“Dale”) Messick was born in South Bend, Indiana on April 11th 1906 and in 1940 she created the newspaper strip Brenda Starr for the Chicago Tribune. She created the strip under the less gender specific moniker of Dale as, back then, women weren’t taken too seriously in the comic strip biz and men’s hands had a tendency to wander. My, how things have changed, he said tonelessly. Now I’m going to make a half-hearted stab at showing a modicum of interest in the human being who made these strips. Don’t worry it’s not much; just other people’s words rewritten enough to avoid legal action (hopefully), but it’s better than nothing. Call me Icarus.

So, in between 1906 and 1940 what was Dalia Messick up to? That’s 34 years in there, that’s not chump change time-wise. Well, Dalia Messick spent the first part of her life as a child attending Hobart High School where her reported severe myopia, poor spelling and left handedness indicate those were not the happiest days of her life. Maybe, as it is for many such children, art was a refuge; maybe it wasn’t, but art was where Dalia Messick ended up and judging by how she got there it wasn’t by chance. Usually around this point I’d be obliged to point to the fact that her mother was a milliner and her father was a sign painter hence her budding artistic interest and later commercial success.

That’s a bit pat, maybe? Well, I do think the milliner thing is interesting because Messick’s art very much resembles the fashion illustrations of the time; full of sweeping lines and curves. Her strips have a marked emphasis on apparel rather than the folk sporting it. And hats; Brenda Starr is all about the hats. There’s even an innovative “soil hat” to keep the flowers adorning it fresh; it didn’t catch on. Milliners (like her Mum; keep up) design and manufacture hats, so I’m not just grabbing this stuff out of thin air. Mind you, I’m not sure about the sign painting her Dad did though. I guess it could have set in place the importance of bold visual appeal in snaring attention; something these strips also trade in. While Messick’s strips lack Milton Caniff’s (or Frank Robbin’s Caniff informed) chiaroscuro approach or Alex Raymond’s mannered elegance they do have energy. Sure, Brenda Starr is scruffy stuff in comparison to Terry and the Pirates or Flash Gordon, but what its visual raggedness lacks in precision it makes up for with impact and the eye really tears through this stuff. I’ve just exhausted all my points of ye olde newspaper strip reference, but I imagine quite a lot of the strips of the time got by on, er, enthusiasm rather than majestically realised technique. I doubt though that many strips of the time cherished fashion as much as Brenda Starr did.

Brenda Starr is a romantic adventure strip so, sure, there are cars and building and desks and snow and rocks and all that scenery malarkey but it’s all a poor second to the fashion stuff. Yes, there’s scads of high adventure and derring-do in Brenda Starr; there are parties, mysterious millionaires, marriage proposals, young men cross dressing in sea shell brassieres, eye patched lotharios and all the enchantingly surreal stuff you’d expect from such a papery cough-syrup daydream, but there’s also a whole lot of vogueing going on. As the cupid struck men around Brenda prove it’s not unusual to fall in love with anyone, and nor is it unusual for the bulk of a Brenda Starr strip to consist entirely of Brenda flouncing around in a ridiculous concoction of feathers, fur and lace. Sometimes her kit is so flamboyantly bizarre that she resembles nothing less than a haute couture version of the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. I say her outfits are ludicrous creations but I am pretty much fashion unconscious so I could be wrong there. They are certainly, um, distinctive, as they say in Paree. Yes, distinctive indeed as are each of the strips no matter the schmutter Brenda’s bedecked in. I won’t lie; these strips are kind of clumsily garish and oddly distorted and, at first, I didn’t know what to make of them. And that’s why I read up about her and did a bit of poking about at 1940s stuff. Hence the enormously speculative bit about how her Mum and dad, and their jobs, fed into her art. Even better and, better still, even less speculative is the fact that Messick worked in the greeting card industry before her strip was picked up by the Chicago Tribune. Because if there’s one thing these strips resemble it’s 1940s greeting cards pressed into service as a narrative.

Reading other people’s research tells me that Messick spent the tail end of her 34 years prior to hitting the comics jackpot in the greeting card industry. She must have had a knack for it because she managed to support her family through the Great depression with such work. I guess people may not have wanted hats designing or signs painting but they still wanted to send chirpy bits of card to each other; go figure. By 1940 America had been hoisted up out of the Depression by its bootstraps via the brawny Liberalism of Roosevelt’s New Deal and, of slightly less historical import, Dale Messick’s art was forever imprinted by her past vocation. Who would have guessed a bunch of newspaper strips about a flighty but capable and independent female reporter in impractical clothing would weather the years better than Liberalism. Now, as awesome as the days when Liberals got shit done were (so awesome; so, so awesome), things weren’t all rosy back then, no, what with all that sordid kerfuffle over in Europe and all that sexism in the men everywhere. Oddly, Brenda Starr, on the admittedly incomplete evidence of these strips, largely ignores the whole unfortunate Second World War thing preferring instead to accentuate the positive and carry blithely on as though nothing is happening. Plenty of other people picked up the slack on that, but few strips would have reflected so well the growing emancipation of the women on the Home Front.

And Brenda Starr does it naturally without polemic or stridency simply by being a strip about a woman with moxie. Brenda may not appear terribly self-determining and there appears to be a total lack on Messick’s part to be pushing any agenda as such, but by simply being what it is it is of significance. If I, somewhat unscientifically, take some lady-centric comics I’ve been looking at lately we have Brenda’s near contemporary, and Ms Messick’s namesake, Dale Arden; there she is dressed for a bordello and endangered approximately every seventeen and a half minutes on an alien planet, and she’s mostly concerned with getting Flash Gordon to marry her. Then there’s Diana Prince: Wonder Woman from the progressive year of 1968 in which Steve Trevor picks up a strange hippy woman in a bar and Diana Prince just weeps unsettlingly fat white tears while upbraiding herself not to be so jealous. Back in this century I’ve read a couple of 2013 comics which are, you know, just the same old violent boys comics but the hero is a heroine with a name like Silky Fontaine. Which is fine if you like that; fill your boots. But I’ve met a couple of women over the last four plus decades and I can exclusively reveal to you now that some women like romance, some women have even been known to take an interest in fashion, and, it beggars belief this, they are capable human beings who get stuff done. Now, I don’t want to end up refusing to leave the house until sufficient people sign a petition saying I’m not a monster but perhaps, just perhaps, there might be a very profitable middle ground in comics between portraying women as sex toys or sad death machines.

Dalia Messick wrote and drew Brenda Starr from 1940 to 1980 and it continued in other hands until 2011. That’s not small potatoes there and it’s probably largely down to the fact that her audience could identify with Brenda and live vicariously through her. As gaudy as her adventures may have been Brenda was always just a woman. While there’s no end of everyman characters in comics there’s a real dearth of everywoman characters. And there is an everywoman; ask Chaka Khan. Brenda Starr might appear unfashionably feminine but she is who she is and she’s happy being like that and it holds her back not a jot. I enjoyed Brenda Starr because Brenda Starr reminded me very much of the last five minutes of INLAND EMPIRE; an eruption of women being unapologetically happy in themselves. How could that ever be less than GOOD!

It's A Fair Cop, Guv Dept. John got any facts in the above from the wikipedia page abour Dale Messick. There are a lot more facts on there and also some useful links at the bottom of the page.

"That Was MY Bikini. That Drug Was Meant For ME!" COMICS! Sometimes You Can Go West But Life Is Not So Peaceful There!

Yes! She’s back the lassie with the classy chassis; the gal whose gams are deadlier than a gat! Put your hands together for miss Honeeeey Weeeeest!...Honey West. You know…Honey West. Looking at me like I’m just making farting noises with my mouth isn’t helping. Okay, let me hit the streets, break some heads and see if I can get the real skinny on this crazy dame… Anyway this… HONEY WEST #1 and #2 Illustrated by Cynthia Martin Written by Trina Robbins Coloured by Mark Simmons Lettered by Marshall Dillon Moonstone,$3.99 each (2010) Honey West contents (c) Gloria Fickling

Who is Honey West? It’s a fair question if you are under ninety; a question I’ll try to answer with all the authority of someone who has just spent too much of his free time looking a load of stuff up on the Internet. Because I’d sure never heard of her. I was just looking for some Trina Robbins comics.

I truly cannot even begin to imagine how niche this book is. Comics are already a niche item so a comic featuring a character whose last book appeared in 1971 is, I don’t know, is there an award for this kind of thing? If there is my money’s on Moonstone. And according to Moonstone books Ms West was the first female private eye in popular fiction. That carefully worded claim does sensibly still leave the door ajar for a female private eye to have preceded her in unpopular fiction. These are litigious times, daddio. Honey West was the creation of one G.G. Fickling but things get hinky quick because the purposefully ambiguously gendered one never existed. Well, except as a front for Gloria and Forrest “Skip” Fickling; a married couple of stiffs with an eye on the lucrative paperback market.

The lady with a moniker formed from combining a popular term of endearment with a navigational direction first appeared in the book This Girl for Hire in 1957. A series of nine books with demurely restrained titles such as Honey In The Flesh (1959) and Dig A Dead Doll (1969) followed. The lady with a name like a gated community returned briefly twice more in 1971 and 1972 before falling backwards gracefully into the soft and fluffy bubble bath of obscurity. I have absolutely no idea about Honey West unless they are other people’s ideas but I’m guessing the peak of her popularity came in 1965-6 when she was played by the well made actress Anne "Forbidden Planet" Francis in 30 episodes of an ABC TV series. That’s twice as many episodes as Firefly managed, so I guess Moonstone can be forgiven for thinking there’s money in Honey West yet.

“Raised on Nancy Drew, I had never heard the term ‘feminist,’ but I knew there was a need for someone in books, movies and television who could be as tough as Mike Hammer or Batman, but in a skirt and high heels...”

That’s Trina Robbins there on her doily adorned website talking about the book. It’s also a clear example of Trina Robbins missing a trick. I mean, what if you just put Batman in a skirt and high heels? I’d buy that and I know you’d buy that. We can smell our own.

Anyway, Honey West is often described as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Mike Hammer. Unfortunately, as I have a somewhat vivid imagination, this comic failed to deliver on that promise. I was hoping for Honey to explode into violent acts of near bestial sadism; maybe shoot some dirty Communists right in the eyes and smack some foolish men around for their own damned good. But, no, she’s just an affable swell lookin’ babe mixed up with a bunch of real no-goodniks on the groovy razor’s edge where the nightclub and hippy drug scenes intersect. She’s less Mike Hammer and more Lew Archer in leopard skin stretch pants. That’s okay, I was always more of a Lew Archer man. Leopard skin stretch pants not so much. Not with these legs. Ba-Tisssh.

By Cynthia Martin & Trina Robbins

It’s an entertaining pair of comics; a pair I wished I’d liked more given the pedigree. Oh, it’s all deftly done but a little flat. There are some good lines, a couple of laughs and the cartoonily fluid but precise art of Cynthia Martin keeps it all swinging along in a frothily frictionless manner. Actually, it took me a while to warm to Cynthia Martin’s art but once I realized there the scale of her cat wasn’t off (it was an Ocelot; it’s that kind of book) I relaxed and appreciated the clean surety of her line. Alas, a couple of scenes apart, her sketchiness is a little misplaced particularly in the exteriors, and so she fares badly in communicating a sense of time and place. Which is a proper shame as part of the appeal of a project like this is seeing a simulacrum of the past. However she really gets her groove on when it comes to her characters. There’s real ring-a-ding work in this area with a vibrant sense of life in her people each of whom is topped off with great work in the face department. The best face work of all being her beautiful channeling of Anne Francis which never once seems stilted.

By Cynthia Martin & Trina Robbins

Cynthia Martin's art is as frothy and camp as the script demands. There’s no pretensions to Great Literature here; just an attempt to entertain. And entertain it does but always in a bafflingly restrained fashion. Even though there’s murder by poisoned hot pants, some raunchy nightclub cat fighting action, a couple of Honey in the flesh scenes, a dead couple of adulterers in a piano (I told you; it's that kind of book) and a drug fuelled meltdown it all feels a bit PG-13. To be honest this may be due to my comics palette having become degraded over decades of misuse. Sometimes I don’t need to uncork the venom and sometimes hyperbolic plaudits aren’t required, because sometimes a comic is just OKAY! Honey West is nice enough stuff and wouldn’t ruffle any feathers were it to become a light comedy-drama TV show. Which is probably the idea really. I doubt Moonstone are making comics featuring Honey West, Captain Action & Derek Flint teaming up out of altruism. Oh yes, there is such a thing. I told ya, my money’s on Moonstone!

But the safe money's always on - COMICS!!! It's A Fair Cop, Guv Department: The paperback covers were nicked from:http://pulpcovers.com/tag/honeywest/

"...Is This A Giant Sponge I See before Me?" COMICS! Sometimes There's Plenty of Effing And Jeffing In Them!

So I read a comic featuring a 1980's Brit Comics Icon who is still going strong in the 21st Century. Oh yeah, and Tank Girl's in it. Ho de ho de ho! Sigh. Anyway, this...

TANK GIRL: CARIOCA Art by Mike McMahon Written by Alan C. Martin Tank Girl created by Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin Titan Books, £14.99/$19.95 US/$23.95 CAN (2012)

If you’re in the bag for Tank Girl you’ll like this. Or Mike McMahon. But later for Mike McMahon as I am old fashioned so it’s ladies first! Yes, Tank Girl; the one with a kangaroo for a boyfriend; the one that went on to become a film everyone pretends didn’t happen. Especially Ice-T, I imagine. "Pure self-indulgence" says writer Alan Martin in the introduction in a brave attempt to describe the crazed contents of this volume. The more humdrum description of the contents would be that it collects the 2011/12 mini series featuring the late ‘80s iconic female Brit comics character. Martin’s self-deprecating comment shouldn’t be taken as a demerit. Hasn't Tank Girl always been pure self-indulgence right from the off?

Now, I have to come clean here, and it’s to my terrible shame this, but; I was never all that bothered about Tank Girl. This was totally my fault for being too old when she arrived circa 1988. Poor planning on the part of my parents there. As it was, her almost totally nonsensically adventures seemed all style and not so hot on the substance. It was quite, quite lovely style though deriving as it did from co-creator Jamie Hewlett’s delicious designs. The stories just failed to set my po-faced world alight seeming to my humourless mind all sassy surface atop very little sense. Luckily, this core emptiness and surface challenge made Tank Girl ideal for co-option by the subculture of the time. Certainly no bad thing as that subculture was both highly inclusive and engaged in active reaction against the Thatcher government, particularly its intolerant and hypocritical Clause 28 (an attempt to curb the promotion of homosexuality. Because that’s the big problem with homosexuality isn’t it? It’s always being forced down your throat.)  So, a bit more impact on the real world than most comical periodical characters and hence belated big props to Tank Girl from my sour faced self.

And here she is again, same as she ever was. And why the fuck not, cake shanks? That's part of the charm isn't it? The truculent resistance to change; to growth? Here's Tank Girl and she may be knocking on a bit but she's still got a young heart. Still impertinent, still insolent, still vulgar and still living in a world with a veneer of the fantastical but with her bovver boots firmly grounded in the mundane. In Carioca her barely linear adventures are sparked by a TV Game Show Host’s insult. This results in an act of violence which is absurdly out of all proportion, so much so even Tank Girl has a think about calming down a bit. Well, out of all proportion unless you have suffered through Take Me Out.  (Christ, that thing; let's all pack up and go home. The human experiment is over.) Anyhoo, this feint at maturity lasts about as long as it does for a series of bizarre and wholly ridiculous assassins to arrive (i.e. not long) and it all ends in a fist fight with a hugely obese woman who is using children as slave labour to staff her brewery.

Not only that, no, it all takes place in Tank Girl World where an everyday British City is a few panels travel away from a wild west town which itself is a page away from a steaming jungle and everybody drinks, swears and smokes like kids in a nightclub. The title itself, Carioca, is itself taken from the nightclub where Martin had some good times when younger. (Maybe too many good times. As someone I knew liked to say.) Carioca is about, if it’s about anything (which I’m not sure it is; it's not a requirement), growing up; but not too much. Just a bit; enough that you can still hate everyone who ever slighted you in your formative years but still appreciate your friends. There is also a truly excellent joke about a lemming.

As you’ve probably gathered Carioca is an entertainingly ungainly thing. A thing at once both banal and bizarre. The successful visualisation of such a guttersnipe requires a very special artist indeed. Luckily Mike can rid that bike, no problems. Stabilisers will not be required. Mike McMahon; yes, the very same pictorial powerhouse we last encountered making Batman comics more visually interesting than they had any right to be. It’s been a few years since that Legends of The Dark Knight work and Mike McMahon's not one for setting his arse to laurels. So, like a good Artist would Mike McMahon’s changed it up a bit in the interim. Here his work is a lot more curved which brings a new dimension of depth. There’s a real roll and sweep to the lines and the world they make and everyone in it. A real sense that there’s a back to the image, although obviously there isn’t. Mike McMahon draws the most ridiculous things and he draws them in a way which accentuates the absurdity, but he draws them so convincingly that they become beautiful in their assurance. McMahon’s also done some absolutely droolsome colour work here. His palette really pops on the glossy paper and there’s a real lustre to even the khaki fatigues and boiler suits. His magnificent use of highlights brings further depth to the images until they don’t look like drawings but windows into another dimension. A dimension of lightly varnished plasticene caricatures both charming and unsettling in equal measure as they engage in their profanity studded comical violence.

Mostly though, I liked the curves. And with the curves come flow. The eye glides across these pages as though inertia’s been cancelled for the duration. It helps no end that being the perfectionist he is McMahon’s truly egalitarian in the attention he pays to his pages. There isn’t a single image on any of these pages which is dead or just a bridge between something more appealing to the artist. Every panel could be a splash page and every splash page is a beauty. Also, at the risk of sounding like a psychotic I’ve always found McMahon’s art to somehow convince my eye that the actual image its ingesting is bigger that the panel it occupies. I don’t know what the technical term for this is; delusion, probably. Yeah, yeah, whatever, blah di fucking blah, basically Mike McMahon can draw a giant Victoria sponge cake on the back of a lorry and you won't blink twice. Yeah, Tank Girl fans will be in hog Heaven here and the rest of us will be up there with them because, thanks to Mike McMahon, Carioca is VERY GOOD!

Mike McMahon is (and it bears repeating) – COMICS!!!